There are times I do not write as clearly as I think I do. There are also times when, as with your question about this phrase in my Bites article, I think to myself, "I can write this better."
So, I am going to change the paragraph. Most of it will be the same, but I have added some things, and rearranged some things.
Here is the original:
Snake keepers most often get bit because they are stupid. No matter how tame a snake is, when it is hungry and it senses something nice and warm moving around in front of it, especially when it can also smell what it considers to be its usual food (rodents, rabbits, birds), it isn't going to stop to realize that its usual prey doesn't wear blue jeans and a tee-shirt. If you smell like prey, if the room smells like prey, if you are with someone who smells like prey (and you will smell like prey if you handled prey within the previous 15 minutes or so), to a snake's brain, you are prey.
Here is the revised paragraph:
Snake keepers most often get bitten because they are stupid. No matter how tame a snake is, when it is hungry and it senses something nice and warm moving around in front of it, especially when it can also smell what it considers to be its usual food (rodents, rabbits, birds), it will strike. The snake is not going to stop to and think, "my prey doesn't wear blue jeans and a tee-shirt". The snake is not going to stop and think at all: it is just going to grab, as quickly as possible, what it thinks is probably food. The lesson is: If you smell like prey (and you will smell like prey if you handled prey within the previous 15 minutes or so), or if the room smells like prey, or if you are with someone who smells like prey, to a snake's brain, you _are_ prey.
