So my research on home remedy ingredients led me to a website on Tylenol, one use of which is maybe killing all those awful snakes on Guam, and that link led on to a paragraph on what to do if you actually live in the South Pacific and encounter a Brown Tree Snake. I found it terribly funny in a sick sort of way but unfortunately, only those few lucky readers who have actually seen my mom dispatch a garter snake with a hoe can truly understand why. The rest of you can try to imagine:
If a snake is encountered, it can probably be easily dispatched with a blunt object such as a broom handle or a heavy object. . . Even when mortally wounded, a snake may continue to wriggle and writhe for some time. As long at it is incapable of coordinated locomotor movements, it need not be further bashed, hacked, or mutilated in response to random and ineffective reflex movements. Remember, you may want someone to positively identify the snake, and the difficulty in making an identification may be increased if you pound it to an unrecognizable pulp or a multitude of pieces.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteSis Rebecca says: hahaha, oh the memories of mom, her hatred of snakes, and the death machine, the garden hoe!! I can still see those pulverized gater snakes wiggling around and mom not giving up till there was nothing but mush left. Gross, but funny at the same time!!
ReplyDeleteI ran over a garter snake with the lawnmower. Of course I finished the job, but I didn't see anything funny about it. When we lived in Texas and were surrounded with all sorts of poisonous snakes we had no choice but to kill them, but a little garder snakes is no threat to anyone.
ReplyDeleteJoyce,
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. I do place priority on human life over that of snakes (which would lead me to kill a venomous snake close to my home), but have a problem with reflexively killing "critters". God did give us a richly populated world to take care of and enjoy, and it seems as though taking a life should not be done lightly. (I suppose I do have something of an implicit hierarchy of life-forms, as I rarely suffer regrets at killing mosquitoes, or most creatures that venture inside.)