Kentucky’s largest venomous snake is also a good swimmer…good times [VIDEOS]

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, as they say. That's how I feel about snakes in a roundabout way.

First, I don't want them CLOSE to me at all. I'd prefer we didn't live in the same state, but that's impossible. No, my angle here is that I'm constantly reading up on snakes and clicking through when I see a snake story. You see, I need to know where they ARE and what they are doing so I can avoid them at all costs.

Before I go on, my sister has another take. Since she is absolutely terrified of mice and rats (I'm not exaggerating), she has no issues with snakes at all. HER motto is, "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." We approach serpents from wildly different directions.

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I bring all this up because I ran across THIS today and I STILL have the heebie-jeebies:

Look, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised that snakes can swim because they ARE reptiles and it would seem like that ability would fall within their portfolio of talents.

But timber rattlers--and that's what that North Carolina family was encountering--don't like the water. They'll swim if they need to but they don't like it. And, really, there's something about seeing a snake swim that amplifies its creepiness a hundredfold.

And yes, even though that video came from North Carolina, the timber rattlesnake IS a Kentucky species and it IS Kentucky's largest venomous snake.

Check this out. It's a video from a decade ago taken at Kentucky Lake:

That's another thing. When snakes are in the water, they seem to be much bigger than they really are.

I love to swim and I just hope that THAT kind of ugly surprise is not in my future.

Lord.