If You See A Snake

If you see a snake, just kill it - don't appoint a committee on snakes.

Ross Perot

A morning walk on the beach.  That’s one of Craig and my favorite things to do on vacation.  Kind of hard to do when visiting Iowa but since we happen to have a beach where we actually are (not Iowa), we proceeded.   A local family visiting the same resort was gathered around something on the sand.  The mother was farther away with a look of dread on her face so we figured it had to be something live and also not adorable.  As we approached the father was poking at a sea snake with a stick.  I’m sure the snake was more scared of us than we were of it, but I was ever so slightly terrified.

The snake was small, about 20 inches long.  Craig later read that the same breed could get up to nine feet long.  Post traumatically, I suddenly had even more respect for our new friend.  The family consisted of all boys so they were thrilled with their find; jumping up and down and offering advice about how to handle the snake.  Since the advice was in Spanish I can’t tell you if it was good or not, but the father just ignored them and did what he thought was best.  His wife yelled obvious phrases of insanity using words like “loco” and “macho,” but like all men everywhere in the world he ignored her as well.

It ended up his intent was to save the snake and return it to the sea but far away from the area where people swim.  So he figured out a way to safely carry it down the beach toward the rocks and released it back into the water.  I’m not sure, but I think we witnessed the Latino Steve Irwin before our very eyes.  At least I’m sure he thought that’s who he was.