I remember the day Steve Irwin died like it was yesterday, not because Steve Irwin died but because it was the day Richard Hammond of UK Top Gear had a major car accident. Laura and I hadn’t officially started going out at that point but she was sniffing round me like a fly round shit. Attracted like so many before her to my Mustard yellow TImberland sweatshirt and my somewhat transient living situation.
Laura loved Richard Hammond, more so than she loved Jason Manford. Richard Hammond is about 5 feet 6 inches tall and looks a bit like a hamster, but regardless Laura was all in, so that is why I know exactly that Steve Irwin died in September 2006. Her responses to the many Steve Irwin jokes I sent her were at best muted, she was incredibly worried about Hammond.
Steve Irwin was a hero to many. Not to me, I thought he was an utter idiot, but many people did and still do love his closeness to nature and his bravery handling wild animals. I never really got it. Play with fire enough and you get burned and while getting impaled by a Stingray is high on my list of unusual causes of death for him it seems fitting.
I had largely forgotten about the poor mans Crocodile Dundee until this weekend, much like Harriet had forgotten to hand in 2 weeks worth of homework despite doing it all flawlessly. I mean Jesus Christ, at least Fred gets to play on his X-box for 3 hours when he gets a zero in his homework. H sat there and did it and then still scored a zero….
Saturday though brought the memory of Irwin home hard though. I was out in the back yard by the pool trying for the millionth time trying to get the damn airless tire on Freds scooter. My hands cut to ribbons, sweat pouring from my brow, occasional swear words yelled at the top of my lungs, drowning out the gentle birdsong and the low hum of the pool pump. Laura and Fred were with me, supposedly pushing down on the tire with all of their might.
Laura was doing that, she was genuinely trying. Fred on the other hand was using his finger tips to transfer his body weight onto the tire. That was annoying me, but when the wheel slipped and I cut myself for the 5th time in 20 minutes I am not to proud to say I lost my shit.
Not wanting to go into explicit detail to Fred of exactly what I thought of his effort I walked away towards the back of our screened in area and again swore, quite loudly. As I got about halfway back there I stopped dead in my tracks. There was a 5 foot long snake trying to climb up the screen and it was on the inside…
I am British, we don’t have snakes, we aren’t Ireland, St Patrick didn’t banish them all, it’s just too damn cold. So when I saw this snake I shit myself. Laura then saw it, she shit herself, Fred couldn’t have cared less.
One thing I forget to say when describing the scene is that I was dressed for the day, Fred was dressed for the day, Laura however had her pyjamas on, it was only 1pm after all. Consisting of some extremely baggy booty shoots and an even baggier vest top, this is important information.
I don’t know what to do with a snake, it wasn’t venomous but it’s still a snake. Adrenaline was high in 66% of us. In situations like this I like to take a step back, work out a plan and get it right first time. Laura, the ying to my yang just goes to town. Before I had chance to properly assess the situation, blood pouring from my cut hand, Laura was in the corner trying to “shoo” this snake out with the pool net.
I am unsure what was less suitable for the task at hand, the net or Laura’s baggy arse PJ’s but this just made the situation worse. The snake got rightfully pissed off, it nearly went in the pool, but then just made a beeline for Fred and I. Moving at the speed of light spurred on by the shit plastic net hitting it and Laura’s ear piercing screams it just came at us, then right at the last minute turned and scooted behind my bar.
This was a problem. When we could see the snake it was bad enough, but now like when Superman puts on a pair of glasses we had no idea where it was.
Now we could pivot to the Dave solution. Take our time. Nope…
Under “strict” instructions from a 5 feet 3 woman with 3/4 of her ass hanging out of her shorts I moved the fridge, slowly because I was still shitting myself. It was there staring at us, just out of reach. All we had to do was wait for it to move and then we could “guide” it out of the door a mere 2 feet away. I don’t think i verbalized this plan because the pyjama wearing paramilitary was banging the bar within 3 seconds of us locating it.
Surprisingly this didn’t work. The snake climbed up the bar and into all of the glasses. At this point we are truly fucked. We can’t move the glasses, we cant use the super aggressive sweeping tactics that had got us this far. We were stuck, or so I thought.
In the blink of an eye Laura had a can of wasp spray. I don’t 100% remember if I thought this was a good idea, adrenaline was flowing. But just as quickly Laura is spraying the entire area with wasp spray, particularly viciously directly into the snake’s eye.
Incredibly this worked. The snake was stunned and just slowly and of it’s own accord slid down the bar and out the door, never to be seen again. We were saved. Laura stood there victorious, ass cheeks still sticking out of the sleep shorts, like a red faced, slightly older Daisy Duke from the Dukes of Hazzard. I had completely forgotten my scooter inflicted injury and Fred had moved about 3 feet from his original starting position.
It was at this point and with the thrill of the chase over I hatched my plan. It was not a venomous snake, it was medium in size, I have gardening gloves. I could have put them on and picked it up, there was no danger. All I needed was 30 seconds to think without the distraction of the screaming and the ass cheeks.
What has come of this though is that Laura now see’s herself as the savior of the house (rightly so) and very much the Canvey Island Steve Irwin.
I on the other hand am seriously considering going swimming with the Sting Rays.
The Shroders in Florida 