Could you keep shopping if you ran across something like this in a parking lot?
Could you keep shopping if you ran across something like this in a parking lot? Oregon State University/CC BY-SA 2.0

There’s a lot of reasons to avoid going to Walmart, but one Arkansas location recently added another reason to the list: a parking lot full of snakes!

According to KAIT, around 40 snakes were discovered Sunday slithering around at a Walmart in Paragould, in the northeastern part of the state. Witnesses initially identified them as copperheads or water moccasins, but when police arrived, they discovered they were in fact harmless garter snakes.

The police rounded up the critters, and with no suspects, are describing the incident as a “bad joke.”

“They were either herding the snakes when they were frog gigging or something,” a detective told KAIT. “Either way, they were collecting them for this reason and I don’t think that was the best thing to do at all. Especially, those out there with a phobia.”

Please keep your snakes to yourselves.