Tuesday February 19, 2013
A snake’s sentiments
By TAN LING SUAN
english@thestar.com.my
Sssssnigger, sssssnigger: Why don’t snakes need weighing machines? Because they have their own scales! In the Year of the Snake, peek into the serpentine mind and see what makes snakes tick (or bite or squeeze).
How little the human world knows about the inner lives of snakes. Why, we snakes have a world of our own, as rich in culture and knowledge as mankind!
Whether you keep snakes as pets or not, you might find the following notes educational.
Where our education is concerned, we study “snake-sphere”.
Do you know which snakes are good at doing sums? Of course it’s always the adders. But they are hopeless at multiplication tables.
We always call the vipers to clean the board.
Do you know what our favourite subject is? Hiss-tory! But if one has a lisp, you might hear “hith-tory” (but I assure you, we have no such subject).
Remember that we measure in inches, as we have no feet!
In our daily life, do they know why snakes cross the park? To get to the other slide of course. For relaxation we may play snakes and ladders – but we don’t draw ladders (too troublesome to use), we draw slides.
We can’t fool each other, as we have no legs to pull.
Do you know why we don’t need a weighing machine? We have our own scales!
Do you know what we call a snake with great personality? A snake charmer, obviously. He receives a lot of “fang mail” from his admirers.
Of course, similar to the human world, we also have accidents. Like when a poisonous snake bites its own lip. Or an over-excited one coils itself so tightly that it gets crushed. (Almost suicidal, don’t you think?)
And yes, there are times a snake may get hiss-terical – when bitten by another while playing games.
And there was an old one who was so short-sighted that she never knew she had lived with a water hose for many years till she got her spectacles made.
In terms of food, what do you get if you cross a snake with a pie? (Yes, we eat pies too.) A pie-thon, dear!
And when we get sick, what’s best for us? Simply asp-irin.
Yes, snaky life goes on, with snakes in the grass, with venomous gossip, and snake-skin littered everywhere. (S-s-sigh)
■ Tan Ling Suan was born in the Year of the Snake but is scared of creepy crawlies and tries to be patient with “fellow-snakes” (except those with forked tongues).
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