First off, while I'm not a fan of our Pop-Star-in-Chief I have to say I'm firmly behind his stance on fly swatting and think that little buzzing bastard had it comin'. PETA does not agree. That's right, in yet another move to utterly destroy their own creditability, the Pea-brains Embarrassing Tidewater Area have expressed their outrage over the President swatting a fly. This further cements the public perception that they are all a bunch of morons. So nice when the public gets it right. Keep in mind I say this while living about a fifteen minute drive from their national headquarters and still deny any and all claims that I had anything to do with pelting their building with raw hamburger.
So, why am I bringing this up? It's because of a chat I had with my neighbor today. He had spotted a snake near my year and wanted to give me a heads up. He had a similar problem with a rattlesnake which had decided to park itself on his porch. Said snake met a grizzly demise via a large spade. No problem, except his son in law works for animal control and told him he could get in trouble for this.
That rattlesnake was an endangered species.
ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME? You want to see a rattlesnake endangered? Have him slither his scaly ass into my yard! It's a rattlesnake. How on earth can them being endangered be seen as being a bad thing? Have you ever met anyone who has said "You know, the world really needs more rattlesnakes"? No, you haven't.
It used to be so simple. I grew up in snake country. We had rattlers, copperheads, moccasins, cottonmouths and every so often a coral snake or two. And the rules of engagement were simple: see the snake, kill the snake. We achieved this in a variety of manners: garden hoes, shovels, yawn darts, firearms, weed-whackers and once with an acid loaded shrapnel bomb. Our biggest kill was a six foot long moccasin. The biggest kill in my old stompin' ground was a cottonmouth my buddy took out workin' pest control, twelve feet long. That's a lot of snake. And the other wildlife benefited from our efforts. Had a copperhead try to get Jason, but he sliced it in half with the weed-whacker. The frog it had recently consumed made it's escape, and is officially the luckiest amphibian I've even encountered.
The snakes were the reason we had outdoor cats. The cats would kill the moles and field mice near the house. Those are what the snakes ate, and since there was no food near the house, they had little reason to come around. Sure our moms would freak out when the cats would leave the dead vermin on our doorsteps as tribute and proof of them pulling they're weight in the household. We understood and applauded they're efforts. It was a bit much when Winston the Cat decapitated a rabbit and left it on the doorstep, but we overlooked this since he was handy in the killing department and in scaring the crap out of The Scorer by suddenly appearing in the window when we were drunk and watching X-Files.
Snakes have been an unpleasant part of my existence since childhood. So, screw 'em. I'm with Doctor Jones on this one.
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