Well, I should clarify further. I don't hate snakes, but I respect them, and keep my distance from them. I have no desire to handle them for pleasure, and I would never own one as a pet, ever.
My favorite place to observe snakes is in zoos- typically I gravitate towards several types of pythons with their beautiful markings, or the snakes that exhibit iridescent scales. There was a zoo in Pensacola that I used to love visiting before a hurricane messed it up (I don't even know if it is open anymore), because they had a wonderful snake exhibit.
My hands-on experience with snakes has recently consisted of the release of various non-poisonous snakes further outside of town after I stumbled onto them either hanging out in my garage or around my ducks. When I was younger and performed a lot of cleanup and fence mending duties, it seemed like I was bit at least once a year by a snake. After a bite, I would gingerly scoop them up and move them to an area where I was not working, where they would simply scurry off to find a new hiding spot. While the bites used to freak my mother out, I never had any problems result from them.
On the other hand, I hate water moccasins with every bone and fiber in my body. They are almost always extremely aggressive on land AND in water, and I will kill them on site. I hate those bastards.
