City Snake / Country Snake

In my continuing effort to document the perceptual differences Chicagoans and Downstaters have toward each other, I submit this item from the Southern Illinoisian:

...of the 40 or so species [of snakes] found in Illinois, only four are venomous and only three of the venomous kinds are found in Southern Illinois.

Rich Marose and his wife came all the way from Chicago Saturday to learn those things and more about snakes. They plan to retire in Southern Illinois and they wanted "to see what we were getting into."

Marose said legends and old wives' tales about wicked snakes in Southern Illinois abound in Chicagoland.

Legends of wicked (wicked!) snakes? Having lived in Chicago, I don't remember ever hearing any stories of snakes in Southern Illinois. You would think at least one Chicagoan would have mentioned them when they found out I was from Springfield (anything south of I-80 is Southern Illinois to them). Maybe everyone was just being polite in front of me and as soon as I turned away, they would comment, "Poor fellow, he had to live with all those wicked snakes."

Oh, and if you think you don't like the wicked snakes among us, listen to this:

Many in the audience seemed to be awed by a demonstration of how many rats and mice a snake eats in a summer - the equivalent of a whole pillowcase full."

If you kill the snake, just imagine filling this pillowcase with rats and mice and dumping it in your yard," one snake expert said. "If you can understand that, you still may not like snakes, but you'll realize they are a good animal."

See -snakes good, not wicked you silly Chicagoans. Just don't ask why snakes are each able to find "a whole pillowcase full" of rats and mice lest a new legend be born.