No Man-Rule today; instead, I'd like to share with you something I saw on the way to work yesterday. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get a picture, so you'll have to take my word for this.
As you may know, I live in Alabama, which is a wonderful state. Truly. I don't want to live anywhere else. But we do have our issues. For example, at the height of summer, we routinely see temperatures over 100, with humidity levels approaching 187 percent. At that point, technically air is no longer "air;" it's soup. Mosquitoes here can be rather large; in fact, one landed at the Birmingham International Airport last year, and air crews mistook it for a Southwest Airlines flight and refueled it.
And, of course, we have snakes.
Now, while it's true that every single type of poisonous snake that exists in North America can be found in Alabama, we could have it a lot worse. We don't have the dangerous snakes that live in other countries, such as the spitting cobra of India, the peeing tree snake of Bora Bora, the lactating mamba of sub-Saharan Africa, or the Kim Jong-Un of North Korea.
Still, though, the snakes we have here are scary enough. The one good thing about Alabama snakes is they've tended to stay in areas designated for them - the woods, some zoos, and away from me in a radius of 12 miles. That is, until yesterday, when I saw one on my commute in to work.
Now, I've seen dozens, if not hundreds, of snakes on the road in my lifetime. They've all been the same species of snake, too - squooshed. But yesterday I saw a snake on the road that wasn't squooshed. He was very much alive. On the interstate. In my lane.
I wish I could adequately describe to you my reactions yesterday morning as I was driving along I-65 and saw the snake. They could best be summed up thusly: "AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" When I first saw it, I thought it was a length of cord or cable or something just laying in my lane, and then I noticed it was moving, and then I noticed it was moving in the same direction as traffic, and then I noticed it was a snake slithering busily along, and then I noticed that I'd wet my pants.
I mean, this snake wasn't just laying in the road waiting to get run over, like any decent snake would. No, this one had its head up, and was slithering just as fast as it could right down the middle of the right lane of I-65. Cars (including mine!) were routinely straddling this snake as it moved its way up the interstate. It looked for all the world like it was just commuting like the rest of us. I think it must have been a lawyer on its way to the office.
I wasn't able to identify the species of snake based on my brief glimpse of it. I would estimate it was approximately 418 feet long, and it had a patterned back. So, if you know a lawyer who's 418 feet long with a patterned back, tell him I said "Hi!" And "I'm sorry I straddled you on the interstate yesterday!"
I looked carefully this morning when I went past the spot again, to see if the snake had been squooshed, but I couldn't find any evidence of it. So either he got squooshed somewhere else, or he made it to his office safely. Or maybe he stayed on the interstate, and he's in Tennessee now. So long as he maintains the 12-mile buffer zone between me and him, we're good.
(c) 2013 John Puckett
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