Snake or Wait?

I have never really considered myself afraid of animals. I love animals, all animals. My husband is always yelling at me to stop petting strange dogs as we walk down the street. We've pulled over during rides to pet the cows or horses. I talk to the animals as I ride by. I move turtles out of the road or trail when I see them in harms way. I have even held my brother-in-law's pet snakes and lizards without squirming.
So I don't know if this happened because I was taken off guard or because of the show I just watched on the Animal Planet of the 7 mostly deadly snakes. But in any case here's what happened. Kathleen and I had been out riding for an hour or two, we had just made a wrong turn and were in the process of turning around and heading back in the right direction. As I go to step over my bike Kathleen says something that I interpret as "snake, blah, blah, blah". Because after hearing snake, I ceased listening to the rest of what she was saying. So I panic. I hop on my bike, then off, I can hear hissing and it sounds so close I don't know which is the better option. I can hear it but don't see it. I just keep yelling where is it, where is it, and hoping all over the place. Kathleen is dying at this point. She finally manages to get my attention long enough to say, there is no snake, you have a flat. What she had originally said before my panic attack was "wait, you're getting a flat". The hissing I heard was not a snake, but rather my tire deflating rather quickly. How I got snake out of that, who knows. Apparently my love of snakes does not run as deep as it does with other animals. I'll take a flat over a snake any day.