Sssssssssseriously!

It was just an ordinary day. Sure the heat was pretty intense but other then that who would have guessed it would go like it did? The drama started when Ursh opened our room door to go out to smoke ...and the snake fell into our room (Proof yet again of why smoking is bad for you!).We suspect it had been sunning itself against our door and probably gotten quiet a fright when it fell in. Being a Good Samaritan, (and wanting a closer look at snakey-snake) I volunteered to catch it. It was a bit nervous so I gently prodded it. Which was when it opened its hood.

Now you don’t need to be a snake expert to know that when something looks like a cobra and acts like a cobra, it’s probably best not to snatch it up and cuddle it close to your bosom! So I decided against that fun option and to rather to go call Ursh father. (We later found out that it was a Rinkhals, which to put it simply is a BIG DAMN POISONOUS SNAKE!!)

It was hiding by the door but as angry and self righteous as a con man caught out! The big danger was that we had a ton of boxes in the lounge, if the snake made a dash for it; it could hide in those boxes and never be found again! (Until two weeks later when walking to the bathroom leads to a hideous pain in your leg followed by some old guy in white handing you a pair of wings and a harp!)

Ursh’s dad got a broom stick and managed to pin the snake’s head down with it. But did that beast ever fight! It’s whole body a coil of thick as cream muscle! (Oh for a fat, old, toothless one!) At one point it got free and made a dash for the boxes! No bungi-jumper has ever felt the pure rush of unadulterated adrenaline that coursed through me at that point! Screw extreme sports, have a venomous creature threaten your life for the thrill of a lifetime! Luckily we managed to divert it and Ursh’s dad pinned its head again.

“Get the axe!” he yelled to Ursh’s mum, who was up and out of there so fast the time-space barrier shuddered for a week afterwards. When she brought the axe back there was only one thing for it. Off with his head!

Now I’m not keen on killing animals in general and believe in live and let live. Unfortunately for this snake letting him live wouldn’t have helped our side of the staying-alive equation, and it seemed it was his time to go on “into the light.” Ursh hacked his head off. It was very meaty. After that we threw the dead body in a bag, in a bag, in a bin, with a lid on, with a bin over it! (Paranoid? maybe, immense feeling of relief? Priceless!!)

I never felt a smidgen of guilt for the death of that snake and if I’d been the one to have to chop his head off, I know now I could have done it without a second thought, though I’d always thought of myself as too squeamish to do anything like that! I guess it’s always easy to say what you might do, what you would do, in a given situation. Easy to say and to judge, right up until, that is, the situation is sitting up and hissing in your face! That’s when you really find out what it is you’re made of.
It’s just something to think about....