Trading everything # 7 -Watching where you step

 In your new country you may have to watch your step a bit.  Australia has more than a few types of poisonous snakes and I wrote more than a few emails about them. Here's one to get us started.
                                                                    

  According to this week's issue of the local paper, a 50-year-old man from nearby Nabiac got a ride in the Westpac Rescue Helicopter courtesy of a death adder that bit him in the arm. One of the activities that we keep missing out on due to either bad weather or previous commitments is the local "bushwalk". This means a hike in the wilds, and apparently this is the best time of year to do it because, according to the organizer of this social event, "At this time of year the snakes disappear." Well I guess we all know now where they disappear to.

  I don't know the individual circumstances of the bite but I wouldn't be surprised if the man just didn't see it in time to avoid it. In one of the interpretive centres that we visited last week there was a terrarium about half a metre wide and one metre long but only about a standard ruler length deep. It sat at waist height and seemed to contain only leaves, rocks and bits of bark. We had a look and left. On the way out we were asked how many death adders we had spotted in the terrarium. We walked around it again. After about 5 minutes of the four of us looking we managed to come up with three snakes. Apparently there were actually four.

   Okay I can see how you could accidentally be bitten by one of these things but how to you think you would feel sitting there as the doctor informs you that you have been fanged by a DEATH adder. Things would already be bad enough without having the word DEATH tossed about in the waiting room. Just think about it, every question that the doctor asked you would involve him saying the word DEATH. "How big was the DEATH adder?" "How long has it been since the DEATH adder struck you?"  "Do you know how deadly a DEATH adder is?" " Were you playing with or tempting the DEATH adder?'"

I don't know about you but all things being equal I would rather hear that the culprit was a:

 MAYBE YOU WILL OR MAYBE YOU WON'T adder

     Or a

JUST GONNA SWELL UP AND BE PAINFUL adder

Or a

PROBABLY BE RIGHT adder

 Or a

NO WORRIES adder

Or a even more hopefully a

RIGHT TO LIFE adder

   I'm sure that you can add to the list while I think of excuses as to why I'm not going on the bushwalk this weekend. Ken