Rubber reptile humor: miSNAKEn identity

miSNAKEn identity

Will somebody please remind me in a few months' time that I stuffed my seven-year-old son's toy rubber snake in a big packing box in the garage?

Being terrified of reptiles, I would hate to forget and give myself a mighty fright when I am looking for something else.

Jack's rubber snake is a very life-like model of a cobra.

Um, well at least I think it is life-like. We have lots and lots of different types of poisonous snakes here in Australia but until the other day I did not even know we had cobras too.
The toy snake is mainly grey with black specks over its body, rather like something I saw slithering into a bush on Tuesday.

"Sounds like the markings of a goanna to me," my friend Orville said when I told him about it in trembling tones. "Did you see its legs?"

"Don't be silly, Orville," I said, wiping the sweat from my brow. "Even I know that cobras don't have legs."

Er, well actually I have never looked at a reptile long enough to ascertain how many appendages it had.
I do remember from a lesson at school that snakes have two penises though. Well, the gentleman snakes anyway.
I have no idea why. Maybe it is nature's way of compensating for their lack of legs. Bad luck, lady snakes.

I saw my first snake when I was about six. I jumped over it in the vegetable patch and I do not think I have ever got over the fright. I have seen quite a few since, and not seen a couple which is probably even worse for my nerves.

When I lived in Papua New Guinea a very poisonous snake even tried to attack me just because I was swimming in its water hole. I was not wearing my glasses and had no idea at the time why all my companions suddenly started to splash me. It was only later I discovered they were actually trying to deter the rapidly approaching poised-to-strike snake.

I spent a very apprehensive few days at a beach house a few years ago after being given a rough map of the holiday home and finding among the directions to the power box and the back door the exact spot where a red-bellied black snake liked to sun itself.

Apparently red-bellied black snakes on holidays are perfectly harmless unless you are unlucky enough to get bitten by one and perhaps die. And then you can claim it on travel insurance.

Call me paranoid, but I spent three days purposely not going anywhere near where I thought the red-bellied black snake might be lurking: the back yard, the front yard, the beach, most of the rooms in the house etc.

Every now I hear about a snake taking up residence in somebody's home, and the snake bailiffs being called.
Well, if that was me I think I would have to move out and let the snake have the house. I would never be comfortable there again.

A farmer friend had a snake move into his outdoor dunny a few years ago.
It found a nice place to sleep among the reading material in the conveniently placed magazine rack.
Imagine the surprise of the reader who found it!

So why, you might ask, has my son got his own rubber toy snake if I hate them so much.

Well, a friend bought it for him a couple of years ago and I did not have the heart to pack it up and send it back. Heck, how could I? I could not even bring myself to touch it.

Anyway, it might have been in response to a request from my wife Katherine and me for our friend to quit giving him noisy drums and musical instruments which made our lives a tuneless misery, and I am not one to be really, really rude.

The toy snake is a bit long in the fang now though, and I have got kinda used to seeing him all around the house.

I have even lost my fear of touching him.

The other day I was doing a quick clean-up of the yard and found him lying in the sun. So I bunged him in a cardboard box in the garage.

"Are you sure?" said Orville.

"Of course I am sure," I said. "What else could it have been but a toy rubber snake?"

"Sounds very much like a goanna to me. It didn't happen to wriggle when you threw it into the box, did it?"

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it