Almost everyone has a healthy fear of snakes. Even snake-handlers have to have a healthy fear of and respect for snakes in order to work with the slithery creatures.

It is fitting, then, that snakes have a HUGE place in the realms of urban legends, folklore, fairy tales and all kinds of storytelling.

People also have an UNHEALTHY fear of snakes, caused by ignorance about the creatures, but this ignorance is what makes snake stories, urban legends, and other tales with snakes in them SO FRIGHTENING and compelling to listen to. In part, most people hope that a tale will reveal some sort of lesson or safety precaution that can be used when considering snakes - even though most people will assume that any story with a snake in it will have a bad outcome for someone or some character in the story

Last week a mother took her enthusiastic 3 year old son to Burger King. While the boy sat reasonably still to eat his lunch, it was obvious he wanted to go play at the indoor playground inside the restaurant. It didn't take much for him to comply when his mother told him he must eat all his lunch before going to play.

The mother watched as her son crawled through the tunnels, slid down the slide and into the ball pit. He played around in the pit for a little while, then climbed around to other areas of the playground. The boy tested out every area of the playground with his mother watching to see that he was navigating all areas safely. After about 10 minutes, the mother felt she could turn her attention to a local newspaper article for a few minutes.

As the boy navigated the playgound, he kept entering the slide area to plunge down from the slide and into the ball pit. The mother was reminded of his presence every couple of minutes, by the boy's, "Wheeeeeeee Mommy Look" while he was on his way down the slide.

The mother would turn her attention away from her reading in order to wave at her son each time he stood up in the middle of the ball pit and grinned. 10 or 15 minutes passed this way, until one time, his mother looked for him, expecting his big grin to appear and his head and body to bob upward from the middle of the ball pit - but when he rose up in the middle this time, he was frowning and was very quiet. The mother walked over near to the pit and asked what was wrong...

"Hurt - hurting, Mommy" the son said, rubbing his arm. The mother assumed her son had bumped his arm, but since the boy was still moving his arm freely, she was not alarmed. Figuring that her son had played enough in the ball pit and had eaten lunch without a fuss, the mother decided it was time to leave. Sometimes minor little bumps and bangs her son endured were an indication that he was getting tired and a bit clumsy and was therefore, ready for a nap. She gathered up her son and took him home.

The mother let her son play a little after they'd arrived home, and promised to read him a story to settle him for an afternoon nap. The boy listened quietly to a story about a bear in a circus but was much less talkative than usual for this naptime routine. Usually he would ask a question or two about characters or events in any given story, but not on this day. This change left the mother feeling her son must be very tired from all his play in the ball bit and on the rest of the indoor restaurant playground.

When she finally tucked the boy in and went to kiss his forehead, she noticed that his skin felt very hot, feverish. She drew back the covers a bit to make him more comfortable and was shocked to find that his little arms had red welts on them. Pulling the covers back even more, she discovered that her son's legs were also developing little red, puffy welts, too - much like the welts from ant bites he occassionally suffered while playing outside...so the mother grabbed some salve that usually worked to provide relief from itching and infection from ant bites and treated her son promptly in this way.

An hour later, the little boy died.

Wondering where the boy could have suffered such serious ant bites, a relative went over to ask questions over at the local Burger King while the mother and other family members gathered to share supports in their grief over the death of the child. It was thought that maybe the boy had suffered a severe allergic reaction, but it was best to find out whether or not there was a more toxic sort of ant among the playground apparatus at Burger King.

When Burger King employees searched the playgound, they found nothing at all which might explain the little boy's reaction or death. Upon closer inspection, in the playground ball pit, the employees were shocked to find a nest of baby rattlesnakes inside the ball pit area.

A young married couple purchased a new bed and brought it home from the store. While the matress had looked and felt okay in the store, when the frame and matress was set up in their home, the couple thought it seemed a bit lumpy.

Having bought the bed at a specialty store which dealt in South American materials and textiles, the couple thought that they might be thinking in silliness about the lumpiness of the bed. They had been accustomed to a futon before acquiring this bed, so they assumed that a real bedframe and mattress might just take some getting used to for a few days. Besides, the store had an impeccable reputation, so the couple decided to sleep in the bed for a few nights to be sure the bed didn't just need some use in order to fit their bodies. Nonetheless, the bed was still comfortable, so it stayed for several nights.

After about a week, the wife noticed a definite lump on her side which seemed prominent, however, a few days later, the lump was gone but then it was the husband who complained of a sizeable lump in the bed when he retired at the end of the day...

Finally, one night when the couple were both in bed - she was reading and he was watching the television - they both felt a lump located roughly in the middle, but as they tended to their quiet activities, each very much awake, they both thought they felt the bed shift. They looked at each other, then started brushing their hands over the surface of the matress. Sure enough, they both found a lump, but when they pressed down on it, the lump moved.

Frightened, the woman dropped her book and both of them jumped up off the bed and stood against the bedroom wall in shock. The lump was visible, and as they stared, the lump moved in a very noticeable way...

Too anxious to sleep in the shifting, lumpy bed overnight, the young couple brought blankets out to their living room and spent the night on the couch and floor.

In the morning, they phoned the store where the matress and frame had been purchased, and said they were not pleased with their purchase. They asked that delivery staff be dispatched to retrieve the bed and were quite surprised to hear no argument at all about their demand - no upsells, argument or offers of trade or substitution were issued at all.

When the delivery men showed up, they were accompanied by a man whose vest said "Pest Control,' and this seemed odd to the young couple, so they asked, "Why is Pest Control here?"

Their question went unanswered and they were asked to stand back out of the way while the store delivery men and Pest Control person entered the bedroom to retrieve the unsatisfactory furniture that was to be returned.

The workmen closed the door, shutting their activities away from the immediate view of the couple. The young couple heard some ripping noises, some hollering and pounding around coming from their bedroom but when they tried to enter, they found the door firmly held shut or propped shut from the other side.

Worried that some sort of con-men had entered their home and unsure of the activities of these men, the couple began to threaten, "Come out of there right now, or we will call the police," and "You aren't delivery people - get out of our house, we are calling the police right now."

Just as the wife began to dial the local police number, a shout from within their bedroom was heard, "Stand clear of the door - we're coming out."

In shock at the bizarre turn of events, the couple did as told.

When the door opened and the men emerged, the Pest Control officer carried, with the help of the other men, a large quivering bag...

The men walked quickly through the home, out the door and to the Pest Control vehicle to place their strange package directly into the back of the vehicle.

Then the men returned to explain...

When the young couple had phoned to complain about their new bed and ask that it be returned to the store, this had been one of dozens of similar calls the store had received in the past few days.

From their previous experiences with the problems that other customers had, the store immediately dispatched staff movers as well as a Pest Control officer with each truck - in order to recover matresses sold recently which contained snakes inside of them - which had somehow gotten inside the matresses in South American locations during the latest cargo shipment.