When I was about 10 years old me and a buddy were fishing down at the creek and noticed a big black snake sunning on the bank. Well, we were both cub scouts and naturally read about how to use a forked stick to pin their head against the ground so you could pick them up. After watching "Jim" wrestling the anaconda on Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom I didn't want him to be one up on us, so we proceeded to pin its head down. That wasn't enough. My friend suggested I pick it up, reminding me that all you had to do was grab it right behind the head and squeeze real tight. So I did. Then he (my buddy) let go of the stick. The snake was longer than I was tall. With its tail on the ground flailing around the snake started trying to back its head out of my grip with its "neck" muscles. I quickly noticed the snakes neck muscles were stronger than my 10 year old grip. The harder I squeezed, it seemed, the better the snake was making progress getting its mouth closer and closer to my hand, all the while smacking me in the legs with its tail. Being an idiot, I kept trying to do the same thing that didn't work before, squeeze harder. I sure wasn't going to let go, even though that makes perfect sense. As I began to scream, cry and jump up and down like a little girl, my buddy counseled me to "squeeze harder",laughing, as he volunteered to run for help, I guess because he figured the snake might just kill me. I politely suggested he stick around, because I was pretty sure he was going to die, right after I figured how to get rid of the snake, which by now had grown to mythic proportions. In a stroke of genius, I decided the best way to rid myself of the deadly beast was to just throw it as fast and as hard as I could - directly at my buddy. It worked. I didn't get a chance to kill him, he was running for help. I haven't picked up a snake since.