The news sweeping the world over the last 12 or so hours reminded me of an incident a few years ago (previously posted elsewhere but worthy of wider posting).
I was living in a nice, rural area, about an hour north of Brisbane, Queensland. I have a cat (Roo Frack) who delights in bringing me presents, generally still alive. Most of the birds he caught flew away, once we saved them. However, one day he dropped a snake just outside the front door which I noticed as I was seeing my daughter off for school – barefoot. Anyway, I rang the local reptile park and asked if they could come and retrieve said injured, live snake, which happened to be black with a light red underbelly.
Now I ask you, would you pick up an injured snake of that description? … No, I thought not.
Anyway, I had to take the snake to them as they didn’t do pickups. So, I got a pillow case and, with the aid of my daughter and the ubiquitous Aussie implement – the stick, carefully placed the snake in the pillow case. Being paranoid about having a snake in my car, I put the snake in the pillow case in a big plastic cube, and taped a huge hunk of cardboard over the top. Being petrified of snakes, I placed the box in a doona (quilt) cover. and tied it in a big knot.
I then drove 5 minutes to the reptile park with said bundle in the boot (trunk?) of my car, got out of the car and went into the reptile park so someone could retrive the snake. So, this fellow comes out, kinda looking at me funny and requests that I bring the snake inside. After retrieving said snake in pillow case in box in doona cover from the boot of my car I re-entered the establishment holding the whole kit and kaboodle at arms length and dumped it on the counter.
Picture, if you will, the look of complete bafflement I got about being so scared of snakes. There were numerous more baffled and disbelieving looks passed my way as the fellow opened up my packaging. By the time he got to the snake, he actually thought I was a complete drongo. So he pulls this snake out of the pillow case and went into raptures about it. Apparently, it was a small-eyed snake (not too poisonous), gravid (pregnant), and ‘it was a beudy’. I was then asked, as said fellow played with this snake, where it came from. Being quick witted, I gave an address at the opposite side of Beerwah as the snake slithered around being held onto by … have you guessed yet?
Beerwah Reptile Park is now Australia Zoo.
Steve Irwin thought I was an idiot.
Tags:
funny