My birthday plans didn’t include photographing poisonous snakes as a highlight. Yet, there I was Wednesday, on my knees, with just inches, a camera and glass walls separating me from a rattlesnake and a copperhead.

I am not a fan of snakes. Logically, I understand that they have a purpose, because every living thing does, and I respect that. But, I can’t quite convince myself to harbor warm feelings about cold-blooded creatures who move like lighting without legs. Some of them can even poison their food, squeeze it to death and swallow it whole, and to me, that’s creepy.

Still, knowing that news deadlines don’t take vacations or observe birthdays, I found myself working on a Thrive magazine story about how to stay safe in a snake’s back yard.

Pipestem State Park Naturalist Jim Phillips was patient with my questions, gracious with his time and more than accommodating to a request that I stop by his nature center to photograph the two poisonous species on display.

I didn’t think too much about the logistics of the photos until I took one look at the smudged glass aquariums — each with a snake inside — and wondered just how I’d take the photos without capturing hundreds of tiny fingerprints or creating a glare on the glass.

Jim must’ve sensed the problem.

“If you’ve got a long lens, I could put them on the floor for you,” he offered.

“I’d rather not,” I replied, trying to sound professional and competent, knowing all the while that I pretend pet stores end with the hamster cages and happily skip the entire reptile section of a zoo.

A few minutes and a few more angles later, I left the Nature Center, secure in the knowledge that I had managed to take the photos without disturbing the snakes who looked so comfortable all coiled up on their newspaper beds and smelling me through their tongues inside glass cages.

On the way back to the office, I returned a call to a friend not yet completely accustomed to the fun, frightening, quirky and sometimes strange tasks my job can entail. He tried to conceal it, but I still heard the concern in his voice when he asked if I was at a state park taking pictures of poisonous snakes — in the wild.

Laughing at the mental image, I quickly assured him that my reptile-related mantra is to live and let live; I leave the snakes alone and hope they return the favor. A disrupted reptile out to defend its den or dinner from a headstrong human is a snake that will bite, with or without venom.

Later, miles away from the snakes and working on a different project deadline, I spent my typical few minutes checking headlines around the state and stopping in to review a local online message board.

First, there was the story about the top official who blamed the state board of education because Washington powers that be didn’t advance West Virginia’s quest for $80 million to improve innovation in Mountain State classrooms.

Next, I ran upon the columnist, who proclaimed that Americans opposed to a health care system run by the government must have deep-rooted anger issues and be filled with nastiness likely to boil over and ooze out.

The trend only devolved with the message board, which included a smattering of well-thought-out points wrapped up in a tangled web of slanderous insults, thinly veiled hatred and grammar that would horrify an elementary student.

My mind wandered back to the snakes and what I’d said to my friend.

As a community, a state and a nation, I couldn’t help but ponder whether we’d be better off if we tried to treat our neighbors like I do snakes.

Instead of stepping onto a camouflaged copperhead’s tail or inadvertently sticking a foot into a rattlesnake’s nest, some of the statements I encountered tonight trampled on others’ ideals, crushed credibility and stuck noses way into dark places where they didn’t belong.

Like snakes, frightened, angry people trying to defend their home or their hopes are people who will strike back, and the constant fighting can be poisonous, with or without fangs.

Tammie Toler is Princeton Times editor and general manager. Contact her at ttoler@ptonline.net.