I’m so glad I don’t have to worry about deadly snakes or giant man-eating crocodiles in New Hampshire.
Legend of the spotted snake:
A Captain takes over a command during WW2 in the middle of the Pacific.
As he is looking through the reports, he finds morale in the basement, a few desertions, and the base is rampant with STD’s.
He calls his top Sergeant in for an explanation. The sergeant looks embarrassed and says. “Spotted snakes, sir,”
“Spotted snakes?”.
“Yes, sir. Spotted snakes.” The Sergeant said, “You see, they are about 4 feet long, kinda fuzzy with black and white spots, but they have a very powerful and deadly poison and the men are afraid of them.
“I see,” said the Captain, “Call a formation in 2 hours and I will show you how to handle this minor problem.”
Two hours later, the Captain walks out in front of the formation and everyone is shocked and amazed that the Captain has one of these snakes in his hands.
“Gentlemen,” the Captain began “It seems that these things are a major concern in this camp. However, I will show you how to handle this in a proper military manner.”
“You grab the snake with your left hand like so.” He demonstrates by holding up his left hand.
“You grab the snake with your right hand.” again demonstrating with his right hand.
You then, forcefully, slide your left hand up like so,” and the Captain popped the head off of the snake killing it instantly.
The men all mutter amongst themselves and agree that this is a simple and effective way of dealing with the problem.
The next reports come out and morale is at a record high, there have been no desertions and the STD’s are almost nonexistent.
However, he does see one of his men is in the hospital. Being the good company commander that he is, he goes to sickbay to look in on his soldier.
He is shocked to see the man is covered from head to toe in bandages.
“Son,” the Captain said, “What happened?”
The soldier replied, “Spotted snakes, sir.”
“Spotted snakes did THIS?”
“Well, you see, sir,” the soldier stated, “I had the night watch a few nights ago and I felt one of these snakes crawl into my foxhole. I did just as you said, sir. I grabbed that snake with my left hand. I grabbed that snake with my right hand. I slid my left hand up, and I’ll be damned if I didn’t stick my thumb right up that tiger’s ass.”
The black snake looks like the black racer snakes very common in my part of Florida.
However, upon closer inspection, they realized that it was not a snake at all. It turned out to be a piece of black tubing from an automobile engine. ...Oh thou baitiest of baits.
About 15 years ago I washed a load of laundry and put it in my dryer.
The dryer refused to run.
The next day I took the back off the dryer and the belt seemed to have come off. The belt felt moist.
A black racer snake had found its way into the dryer in an effort to hide and stay warm.
beware the one eye trouser snake........
Australia is an amazing country populated by great,great people but it’s also the home of many horribly deadly creatures. My favorite is the Sydney funnel-web spider. It’s found in the gardens of suburban Sydney (and elsewhere) and can bite (and kill) someone who’s just trimming the roses in their front yard.