My father's fer-de-lance story

[muckefuck]

(For those of you who don't know what a fer-de-lance is, it's the most venomous snake of the Americas. [Cue one of my Australian readers saying: {Crocodile Dundee voice} "Huh, huh. Thet's not a vinimis sneyk." {whips taipan out of trousers} "Neuw thet's a vinimis sneyk!"])

My father was a member of the Papal Volunteers (basically, a Catholic Peace Corps--Catholics have to have their own version of everything). Late one night, when he was living in Stann Creek, British Honduras [now Dangriga, Belize], he and two of his friends encountred a fer-de-lance. One of them killed it with a machete. Carl Burns, an Iowa farmboy, wanted to save the skin, but he didn't want to do the skinning in the middle of the night. Since this is the tropics, they knew the flesh would get pretty rank and nasty before morning, so they stowed the corpse in the kerosene-powered refrigerator.

Of course, no one warned the cook. A blood-curdling scream at the crack of dawn alerted them to this oversight. She was ready to quit on the spot, but they managed to convince her to stay by promising never to do something like that again.

Comments

[nibadi.livejournal.com]

wäre ich der Koch gewesen, hätte mich beim öffnen des Kühlschranks mit 95 % Wahrscheinlichkeit der Schlag getroffen und ich wäre augenblicklich tot gewesen. Zu 5% Wahrscheinlichkeit hätte ich zunächst überlebt, ein bis 3 Morde verübt und wäre wohlmöglich auf einem Us-elektrischen Stuhl verendet. :)

[currawong.livejournal.com]

Oh Mucky, Mucky,,,,we don't all sound like that odious moron Steve Irwin. Think John Guielgud with a splash of Russel Crow.