Like every Sunday, I did my shopping following my usual routine: picking fresh products, checking expiration dates, and making sure nothing was missing. The next morning, looking for a small sweet treat to enjoy with my coffee, I took out the pack of strawberries to wash them.
As I removed the pack, my eyes suddenly caught something unusual. Among the perfectly red and shiny strawberries was a long, thin, and strange object.
My first instinct was to think it was a simple mistake: perhaps a piece of string or cord forgotten by a store employee during packaging. But very quickly, one detail sent chills down my spine: the object seemed to be moving.
Not in a clear way, but just enough for me to feel a slight vibration, like an imperceptible breath. My heart started beating faster. I leaned in, scrutinizing every detail, trying to understand what my eyes refused to believe. I could see small, repeated movements, as if it were trying to escape the plastic wrap. Looking even closer, I realized what it was.
The realization hit me like an icy wave. This wasn’t a string. This wasn’t packaging material.
It was alive.
Buried beneath the strawberries, curled like it had been waiting for the right moment, was a snake. Thin, dark, and terrifyingly real. Its body stretched across the fruit, blending so perfectly into the shadows that I almost missed it the first time. The tiny movements I had noticed were, in fact, its breathing.
My hands trembled as I held the pack. For a moment, I was frozen—paralyzed between two instincts: to drop everything and run, or to carefully place the box back without making a sound. My brain screamed at me to react, but my body refused to move.
The snake shifted again, pushing against the plastic, and that’s when I saw its head. Small, triangular, with two piercing eyes that seemed to lock directly onto mine. I swear in that instant my stomach dropped. What was it doing there? How did it get past inspections, storage, and transport?
I slammed the pack onto the counter and staggered back. My phone was in my pocket, but even reaching for it felt dangerous—like the slightest motion might provoke the creature inside. I kept my eyes locked on it, watching as its slender body wriggled slowly over the strawberries, searching for a way out.
The idea that I had almost washed them, almost touched it with my bare hands, made me shiver. I could have been bitten. I could have been poisoned.
Grabbing my courage, I took my phone and snapped a few photos as proof. My first thought was to call the store, but what could they even do? Another thought crept in, darker and heavier: what if I hadn’t been the one to find it? What if it had been a child reaching for a snack?
As I dialed, the pack gave a faint crinkle, and the snake pressed its head harder against the plastic. My heart pounded in my throat. For a moment, I thought it would break free right there in my kitchen.
The store manager picked up, confused at first, then horrified as I explained. He insisted I bring the pack back immediately. But the very idea of carrying it through the streets, snake still inside, felt insane.
I placed the strawberries inside a large container, sealed it tight, and set it outside on the balcony, far away from me. For the rest of the day, I couldn’t shake the image from my mind. The thought of that snake traveling who knows how many miles, hidden in fruit crates, unnoticed by workers and inspectors alike—it was chilling.
Later that afternoon, animal control arrived. They carefully removed the snake, confirming it was a non-native species, likely having slipped into the shipment from abroad.
Even though they assured me it wasn’t venomous, the shock remained. Every time I open my fridge now, I hesitate. Every time I buy fruit, I check twice, three times, searching for something out of place.
Because once you’ve seen something like that—once you’ve realized danger can be hiding right inside something as innocent as a pack of strawberries—your routine never feels safe again.
