The Snake

Hi Folks,

I haven’t posted in a while, but then again, that’s how I said it would be when I started this stupid blog. Ya’ get what you pay for.

Anyway, I want to tell you about “The Snake.” I don’t like snakes. They scare me. Not in the poop in your pants and cry for mama kind of way, but in a more rational “Is that thing close enough to bite me because if it is, I am going to shit in my pants and scream for help” way. Snakes seem to seek me out and find me. There is this bundle of neurons that fire in my head right before a snake encounter, and I get this weird, funky feeling. Really. It’s like my brain knows what is going on before I do, if that makes any sense. Maybe the snake is sending me ESP signals because it knows things might end badly. If I can’t figure out what kind of snake it is very quickly after I see it, then it usually ends up dead, and I end up at JC Penney looking for new jockey shorts. It’s not a good time for me or the snake. Now, I don’t want a bunch of OkeFenokee Joe types harassing the crap out of me through the e-mail about abusing snakes. I let the good ones live if I can tell that they are the good ones. Unfortunately, you’ve usually got to get really close to them to tell, and then, the next thing you know, you’re driving to JC Penney…

In the spring of 2007, I went turkey hunting in south Georgia with my ace turkey guide, "Bobby The Turkey Guide." We were driving along his property, and Bobby said “Hey. What have we got here?” And then I said “What” and he said “A rattlesnake”, and right then a shot of adrenaline pieced my entire chest, and I threw my neck back so hard to look as we passed it on the dirt road that I hit the roof of the truck cab with by head…Faen, that hurt. I had never seen a rattlesnake outside of a zoo display, and this was almost too much for my colon to handle. Bobby pulled over and I asked “What are you doing?” and he said “We gotta’ get it off the property. We gotta’ kill it. Do you want to do it?” Since I was the one with the shotgun, I said “Well, okay, I guess.” I got out, loaded up, and gave my 12-gauge a pump. That’s when Bobby said “Not with that. You’ll scare the birds!” I’m like, “WTF am I suppose to kill it with?” and he said “Pick up a stick or something.” At that point, I thought it was prudent to remind Bobby that a) he was the guide, b) I was the customer, and c) I was paying him cash monies to hunt for turkeys, not to hunt for a big stick. Especially not a big stick to kill some rattlesnake by the side of the road who would no doubt try to bite me and make me soil my new, ultra lightweight camo underwear. So, Bobby pulled a giant tractor tine (i.e., a big, heavy, metal pole) out of the back of the truck. He went over to the snake and poked it with the tine. It coiled up and began to rattle just like on Wild Kingdom. Bobby then took the tine and whacked the rattlesnake over the head a few times until it was unconscious. He then buried the head of the snake into the ground with the end of the tine and told me to hold the tine while he cut off its rattles. I held the tine tightly to make sure the snake did not get us while Bobby cut off its rattles. Bobby seemed happy about ridding the property of the poisonous snake. He started to laugh at me because I was holding the tine so damn hard as if the snake would rise up from the dead and bite me. We then went on with the rest of our turkey hunt. We got skunked! It was the dreaded rattlesnake curse! I’m sure of it.

About a month later, I was in the deer woods in east Georgia where I hunt in the fall. I was checking on my stand. I had cut a nice path through the woods the previous year, so I could walk at a pretty good pace. There was a tiny little ditch on the way to my stand, and I thought to myself – “Self, I bet that ditch would fill up with water if it would ever rain in Georgia. And I bet that if it did fill up with water, then snakes would come around and hang out here.” No shit, that’s really what I said to myself. I wasn’t too worried because I NEVER go into the woods without my Smith and Wesson revolver which I keep loaded with three snake shot shells (they are like really tiny shotgun shells for a revolver) and three 357 magnum rounds (i.e., big ass bullets). The first three are for snakes and the last three are for wild hogs, coyotes, or hillbilly perverts like those from Deliverance or The Hills Have Eyes. Plus, it had not rained in I don’t know how long, so I thought nothing more of it. Well I continued walking to my stand. When I got to my stand, it looked fine, so I headed back. I was going to call my hunting buddy on my cell phone to see if he wanted to go into town. However, something made me think better of it, so instead of talking on the cell, I decided to watch where I was going. Imagine that. Somebody who pays attention to what they are doing instead of talking on the cell phone! I’m such a dinosaur. Faen. Well, as I was walking up to that very same ditch I crossed minutes earlier, those neurons fired in my head, and I was overwhelmed with that funky feeling. Sure enough, there was a REALLY BIG snake about 8 feet away from me sitting right on the edge of the ditch to the side of my path. I recognized its skin pattern right away. It was a timber rattlesnake just like the one Bobby and I came across weeks before. I pulled out my revolver and began to shoot. Bamm!! The snake got pissed off and coiled up. Bamm!! I saw its head wobble and then the head plopped on the ground. Taking no chances, I shot it again! Bamm!! As it turned out, only the first shot was snake shot. The last two were 357 bullets. I lucked out. Well, as I passed by the snake, I thought to myself “Damn, that snake is huge. I’ve got to get these rattles like all those other southern boys do. It’s part of my heritage. Yadda, yadda, yadda.” I looked around for a big long stick to bury its head it the dirt. I found a stick, and proceeded to pin the snake’s head into the ground. It started to wiggle. “Ahhhh. Shit, I hope it’s dead.” All of those stories about fangs from long dead snakes pricking people and making them die were now flowing through my head. I got out the Swiss army knife from my pocket, and at that moment, I realized that physics was not on my side. I could not stand and hold this 5-foot long stick while simultaneously kneeling down to cut the rattles off this giant wiggling snake who would like nothing more than to bite me before it expired. I ended up letting go of the stick just barely while instantly sliding my right hand down a little at a time. I was so spastic, that it never occurred to me to drop my knife for a minute and use two hands. Anyway, once I spazzed my way to the ground, I tried to cut the rattles. They were huge too! But the snake kept wiggling every time I tried to cut. It was really weirding me out. Finally, I was able to cut them. I took the rattles and my knife, and I leaped away leaving the stick and snake behind, knowing that it’s spirit wanted revenge. I put the rattles in my pocket and got ready to leave. Just then, I had a thought. What if I come back through later in the week, and I see this rattlesnake in my path. I will shit my pants! So I decided to move it off of my path. I picked up the stick, and slid it under the now motionless snake. I lifted the snake up into the air and began to walk it off of the path. But all of a sudden, it started wiggling again. That creeped me out, and I dropped the snake. I went back to the path to get my knife and look at my rattles only to find that the rattles had disappeared. That’s right; they were nowhere to be found. They were not in my pocket. They were not with my knife. I looked all around, but they had vanished. All of this was taking its toll on my sphincter, so I simply left. I drove hysterically to my hunting buddy’s house a mile or so away, and I begged him to come and look at the giant killer snake that almost did me in. I knew if he did not come, then nobody would believe just how big the snake was and how lucky I had been to spot it before it got me. He reluctantly agreed to return to the scene of the horrific encounter.

My friend went into the woods with me to see the granddaddy of all serpents. When we came to the ditch, I described step by step what had transpired. He looked at the snake and then laughed and said “Why did you bury its head in the dirt? You shot half of it off!” As he was laughing, he was looking for the rattles, and I’ll be darn if the ole man didn’t find them. He has eyes like an eagle. Well, maybe a really old eagle, but he found those rattles. We counted 11 rattles and a button. A rattlesnake gets a new rattle every time it sheds its skin, so this monster had been slithering around for quite a while. Anyway, I was happy to be alive and happy that I had the rattles as proof of my experience.

The next time I went turkey hunting with Bobby down in south Georgia, we went to a Bar-B-Q joint in the nearest town for lunch on the first day. There was a farmer in there telling us that he killed a rattlesnake that was huge. He said it had 11 rattles, and if it would have bit him, it would have broken his leg! Bobby nudged me and said “Tell him about the snake you killed.” I said “Mine had 11 rattles too, and if I hadn’t have seen it when I did, it would have bit me, robbed me of my keys and stolen my truck.” The farmer said “Bullshiiiiiaaaat. You city boys would shit in your pants if you ever came across a snake like that.” I just looked at him and asked “And your point is?”.

I felt compelled to tell you this story today because, last week, I killed another rattlesnake about a mile from where I had my encounter with the giant demon snake from hell in the aforementioned story. This one was lying out on a dirt road in an astronomy village where I spend a lot of time. That’s right, I said astronomy village….one with observatories, and telescopes, and geeks, and stuff. They don’t let you use any white light at night there because they don’t want to “ruin” their night vision. So I spend most of my evenings there fumbling around trying to find stuff or trying not to pee on my shoes. I just knew that if I let that snake go, then it would not be long before somebody met up with it one night. So, I got out of my truck, and shot it three times. Again the first shot just made it mad, whereas the remaining shots did it in more or less. Just to be sure though, I ran it over with my truck three or four times. It still looked pissed off! So I went to a nearby shed to get a heavy steel rake and a shovel. I whacked it in the head with the steel rake and pierced its snake skull. It put one fang out just hoping that somehow I might spaz out and fall on it, and poison myself to death. Every time I touched its tail with the shovel, it would wiggle, but I still managed to cut off its wiggling rattles with the shovel. There were 7 rattles and a button. All of the astronomers came out of their cabins and homes because it’s against the rules to shoot a gun on the property. I yelled out my apology to the entire community, and I told them that I shot a rattlesnake. They were like “A rattlesnake? No problem. No problem. Did you cut off its head?” I’m like “No, I cut off its rattles. I’m not going near its head.” They suggested that I go back and shoot it some more and then cut off its head. Yeah, right.

Well, I haven’t written in a long time, but I made up for it today. Remember, there are good snakes out there, so don’t go crazy with all this new information I have given you. And don’t go putting any rubber snakes in my mailbox, or in my car, or on my front porch, or other stupid crap like that. I am running low on jockey shorts

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

Rabbits Don’t Like Bermuda Turf

Hi Folks. I’m back! I am almost as good as new, but unfortunately, I am not cool anymore.

When Dr. NanBob and I bought our house, we tried to save a few bucks by having the builder seed the backyard rather than sod it. Little did we know that Georgia would be plagued by a subsequent drought, and that the drought would last more than 15 months. Last month, our backyard looked really ugly with scant amounts of grass, crab grass, weeds and a lot of clay. The only living thing that found this yard appealing was a giant rabbit that came each evening to eat the crab grass. This thing was HUGE. If it would have had antlers, then it would score at least a 180 on the Pope and Young deer scale.



Anyway, the yard was looking pretty bad, so I decided to mow it. I thought that making the grass, crab grass and weeds the same short, flat height would improve the looks of the yard. I guess I skipped school the day kids were taught to avoid mowing clay in a drought. It was like a clay bomb went off. You know those pictures of the dust bowl you see in history books? It was much worse than that. The neighborhood looked like an enormous orange duster when I got through. There was an orange cloud of dust that followed me around. It covered our house and cars and those of our neighbors. We were not cherished members of the community when I was finished. It was then that Dr. NanBob and I decided to bite the bullet, bust the bank account, and have our backyard sodded.

As I said, we have a drought going on here where I live. Well, if you put in new landscaping in my county, then, and only then, you can water it a little bit every other day for 10 weeks, but you must first pass a landscape watering test. Talk about test anxiety….Faen. The thought of having to tell Dr. NanBob we couldn’t have sod because I flunked the sod watering test was pretty scary. The exam is preceded by a typical education component in which examinees (i.e., testes) watch a PowerPoint presentation filled with landscape watering facts. For all my former students who think statistics class is boring, well let me tell you, some things are worse; things like sod watering school. The training component is followed by a multiple choice test. I was bummed because I didn’t ace the test….I missed one out of twenty questions. You may think this is simply the neurotic rant of an overachiever here. No, it’s not. I had the damn PowerPoint slides printed out right there in front of me while I was taking the test….Only a moron would not be able to get 100%. Oh well, I guess I was dozing. The heat does funny things to your sleep cycle. In any event, I passed the test, and we got a permit to water our sod. I won, I won! I wanted to frame my sod watering school completion certificate and hang up it in the den. Dr. NanBob was not impressed with my accomplishment nor my decorating idea.

The sod installer was a good ole’ boy from Georgia that I knew, and when he came over, we did what all of us good ole’ boys do here. We talked about the heat, passing out from the heat, the drought, deer and snakes….especially snakes. (Note to self: If you pass out in your yard in the heat of the day, snakes will come and attack you.) During the animal conversation, I mentioned the giant rabbit that visited our yard during the evenings. I told the installer that if the rabbit eats our new sod then he would soon become a "Revereware Rabbit". The installer told me that “nawww, rabbits don’t like Bermuda turf.” Well, a few days went by, and I did not see the rabbit. I was out in the yard a lot trying to put every drop of water I could on that lawn, but I never saw the rabbit. (There may have even been some occasional “ninja watering” when the lawn did not look so good, but I have no memory for such events Sheriff, nor do I remember seeing the rabbit.) The rabbit was nowhere to be found. Wheew! The lawn was safe, at least from the giant rabbit.

Well after about a week, I started noticing all this animal crap over the new lawn. It looked kind of familiar, but I wanted to identify it on the internet to confirm my suspicion. (There are literally all kinds of crap on the internet.) Damn if it wasn’t rabbit crap. Moreover, there was a lot of it too. Remember how I said this was a giant rabbit? Need I say more? There was so much of it that both Dr. NanBob and I felt compelled to remove it with shovels before it killed off some of the new lawn. As it turns out, this mutant rabbit was eating tons of stuff at our neighbors’ houses, and then coming over to our place to relieve itself. I thought back to what the installer said… “rabbits don’t like Bermuda turf.” He was right. They don’t like to eat it. But they do find it useful nonetheless. This rabbit lives by the old Italian adage “Don’t shit where you eat.” It must be a giant, mutant, Italian rabbit. I will buy some really big Revereware, some pasta and a nice bottle of Italian wine later today. You defiled the wrong lawn signore big bunny.

Best Wishes,
Dr. JimBob

P.S. Yes, having a rabbit crap on your large investment is pretty frightening, but so is our horror presentation sensation “Homie Horror: The Beginning.” If you are on Facebook, then you can watch it here:

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=15632178343

Please join our Facebook group too because it helps us to promote the “movie”. If you are not on Facebook, then you can still watch it here:

http://www.roberjam.acceleron.net/Behindthescenes.htm

Don’t watch it alone or with any giant rabbits!!! Especially if either you or the rabbit have just eaten.