One of the worst nightmares anyone can have usually involves something happening to you when you are at your most vulnerable.
In fact, this fear is so ingrained that this sort of helplessness features heavily in any horror media, and is actually a significant part of certain horror game genres!
This is perfectly understandable – it is the worst thing to find yourself in a terrifying situation, and there is nothing you can do,
One common iteration of this fear shows up in the form of being scared of something climbing up and out of your toilet!
It is quite a reasonable fear – you are at your most vulnerable when in the toilet doing your business as it is.
Having something climb out and sink its teeth into your butt where you can’t see it is the worst thing that could happen.
It doesn’t help matters either that things crawling out of the toilet is a common occurrence either!
We have all heard horror stories of rats crawling out of the toilet bowl in certain places.
Now there is a new addition to the list – snakes.
Whether we like it or not, snakes are starting to join the list of creatures commonly hiding in your toilet.
This news was initially brought to public attention after Mike Green of North Carolina claims he has pulled not one, but six snakes out of his toilet over the course of the past four years.
Unfortunately, his dramatic example isn’t the only one. Country singer Brett Eldredge had also recently shared his own story.
He claimed that one day he found a snake in the toilet bowl when he went to use the toilet in his vacation home in the Bahamas.
Australia is no stranger to this sort thing either – the country is full of stories about giant pythons being pulled out of the toilet.
Meanwhile, in many villages in India, it is a given that the toilet isn’t the only place in the house that is potentially harboring snakes.
So, why these snakes are showing up in toilets in the first place?
According to the curator of reptiles and former plumber in the Los Angeles Zoo, it is because snakes feel most comfortable in tight, dark spaces.
Being sleek animals with the ability to squeeze into tight spaces, they then naturally gravitate towards pipes, as the spaces these pipes provide happen to meet their criteria for comfort.
As a result, they will navigate through the local sewer system and inevitably find their way into someone’s toilet bowl.
Of course, this then begs the question why how these snakes got into the sewer system, and why there are so many of them.
No one quite has the answer yet, but until then the curator advises to not play hero if you find a snake in your toilet.
After all, you are not a professional, and you have no training in dealing with a potentially venomous snake.
Instead, call animal control and let them handle the creature, as per their job description.
