I know, I know.
Many, dare I say most, of you think of me as this manly mans man kinda guy. If I had another name it might be Guy Man. Alas, I don’t have another name. I am just plain old, ever-lovin’ and affable Don Rush. Hate to break it to you, but I am also a bit of a wimp.
That realization hit me when I read this story, headlined “Snake falls from car’s dashboard onto Arkansas driver’s feet” from the Associated Press, recently.
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) — An Arkansas woman escaped injury and managed to safely stop her car after a 4-foot-long rat snake came out of her dashboard and slithered across her feet as she drove on Interstate 49.
Rat snakes aren’t venomous or generally a threat to people, but Kelly Swisher says the snake she encountered Thursday gave her a “nails on a chalkboard” sort of feeling.
“It was rough and scaly,” said Swisher, who was running errands when it happened. “I do not know if I had my hands on the steering wheel or not. I am not the most flexible person in the world, but I can guarantee my knees were up next to my ears.”
* * *
Were I in the car when said snake made its appearance the headline would have read, “Man dies horribly in car crash, snake slithers away.”
Kelly Swisher, I tip my ball cap to you. Way to keep your cool, babe.
I would have screamed, as we used to say, like a frightened, little school girl. I would have lost all sense of cool, panicked and would have surely perished. I know it.
Back when I was way cooler than I am now, I drove a red, 1967 Oldsmobile Cutlass convertible with red leather bucket seats, duel exhaust, four barrel carb and a Rocket engine! And, one day, I nearly drove that wonderful piece of Detroit automotive engineering into a tree because I thought a spider was dangling off the bill of my ball cap mere inches from my face.
My hands immediately let go of the steering wheel to knock away the “spider” and when that didn’t work, to knock the cap from my head. In the couple of seconds it took for the spider to appear and for me to lose control, I did manage to get the Cutlass safely to the shoulder of the road. After a few, deep cleansing breaths, I retrieved said ball cap from the floor of the car, inspected it for spiders and found the spider was not a spider, just a little bit of string dangling down from the hat.
I quickly looked around to make sure nobody had seen my “incident” and seeing nobody was relieved. I was able to go on being “cool” for another day.
* * *
Speaking of animal news, I saw this from the AP, too, “Ohio woman ‘prisoner’ in own home due to deer attacks.”
What the . . .?
Yup, apparently in Mentor-On-The-Lake, Ohio ( a quick Google search about this town told me it’s about a half hour east of Cleveland, on coast line of Lake Erie) a woman told reporters she felt “like a prisoner” because a deer had been “attacking” her near her home.
“Cindy Frost says she’s called police about the doe and asked for assistance in walking her dogs near her suburban Cleveland home.
“Frost says the deer charged her last week while she was taking her dogs out. She says she had to fight the doe off with a dog leash and her fist, and tried to zigzag back and forth. Frost says the deer slipped on the black top allowing her to safely return inside. She says the deer then circled her home.
“Frost says the doe’s fawn lives in her backyard.
“State wildlife officials say there’s not much they can do, and that such encounters are likely quite common.”
I am glad there’s less deer drama with Michigan white tails.
* * *
And, speaking of drama, had a little first thing Sunday morning — Fathers Day.
Number One Son Shamus, who gets up before 5 a.m. most days for his work, was up before 6 on
Sunday.
No biggie. I heard his footsteps in the hall for about an hour, back and forth from his room to the bathroom. None of my business, I continued to dose — until about 6 when I heard a very soft, barely audible knock, knock, knock on my door.
“Happy Fathers Day,” said he, “Oh, and there is something in my eye that I can’t get out. Can you help me rinse it?”
So, being the awesome, super-cool dad that I am, I said, “Sure, now get outta the room so I can put on some clothes.”
Water rinse nothing. Saline squirt rinse, nothing. The only thing I was able to do was make his right eye redder. We looked up an urgent care that was open (it was in Oxford), and I sent him on his way to drive himself to the doctor’s office. I went back to bed.
There was a speck of something in there I couldn’t see. They did and rinsed it out. Tragedy avoided.

  don rush, don’t rush me, snakes