Delivery men and women of the world, you are the real heroes. Although many may view them as simply the means by which we receive our much-anticipated packages, let us spare a moment to appreciate everything these regular action icons endure to make sure we get our latest impulse buys on time. They brave police lockdowns, they weather tornadoes… They’re basically Tom Cruise without the acclaim or belief in aliens.
On second thought, maybe delivery men are more like Indiana Jones, as proven when TikTok user Shawn Hoodrich decided to play a little game with his FedEx driver. Just a harmless jape, really. No biggie. He only let his pet snakes loose in his front yard and then only told the FedEx man about it when he was already halfway across the grass. To see how FedEx Man and the Last Crusade went down, catch the video below.
The FedEx man is initially as peppy as ever, until the sneaky snake-handler points out that there’s a serpent just a few feet away from him. The poor guy then curses in surprise and appears to have something of a system malfunction. While his instincts as a delivery man are compelling him to carry on to the man’s door to give him his package, his human side is clearly telling him to chuck the box and flee back to his van. Ultimately, he elects to stand on the spot, hand on hip, politely waiting for the snake to move. Legend has it he’s still waiting on that front lawn to this day.
This frightened FedEx man can rest assured that many would’ve freaked out a heck of a lot more in his situation. “You would definitely have to walk to me,” one comment admitted, while another joked: “the way you and I are about to play catch.” For others, this is genuinely a nightmare scenario come true: “I have nightmares that there’s snakes all over the ground just like this.” Someone else would’ve handed in their notice then and there: “This woulda been my last day!”
Alternatively, there are those out there who not only wouldn’t have been fazed to stumble into Snake Garden they would’ve been in heaven.”Oh I’d have to pet/hold one,” read one comment, as another asked: “can I pet that snake?” Sure enough, it seems Shawn likes to play this trick on all his delivery men as another video on his account shows an unaware Amazon driver being much less fussed by Shawn’s slithering friends.
Perhaps the one who handled it best was this third delivery man, another Amazon worker who immediately deduced the best way around the snakes rather than freezing on the spot or blindly wandering into their patch. Yes, Shawn has recorded this bit three times. We’re beginning to suspect he only orders things just so he can get people to come to his snake-filled yard.
It’s no surprise that Shawn gets such notable reactions when folks approach his front lawn as a fear of snakes is actually the most common phobia among the American public. A 2022 YouGov poll found that 30% of the U.S. population have a fear of snakes, which is properly called Ophidiophobia, ranking them higher than everything from spiders to heights to disease. That’s right, even disease. Nobody’s saying COVID’s a breeze, but at least you can’t see it crawling towards you like a legless demon.