Snakes. Why'd it have to be snakes?

My uncle gave Dave and I his frequent flyer points as a wedding gift so we could go to Australia a year after we were married. We had an amazing time and stayed in every level of accommodation from relatives' couches to a five-star resort and everything else in between. We spent a week in a campervan driving up the Great Barrier Reef coast. It was spectacular.

The farther north we drove, though, the more tropical it became. To me, tropical equals snakes, and snakes equal RUN!!!!

One day, while we were visiting an aquarium, Dave spotted a handout labelled Snakes of the Local Area. Dave's theory, before I read the pamphlet, was that ignorance bred fear and that once I discovered that there were, oh, three harmless breeds of snakes, I would stop my vigilance. His theory after I read the pamphlet was that ignorance was bliss. There were 39 different breeds of snakes, including the second deadliest in the world, and a large number of large constrictors among the non-venomous snakes. These constrictors liked open, cool buildings - like the public washrooms we had to use in our campgrounds at night. Needless to say, I took to limiting my liquid intake and peeing in buckets at night.

Today, I feel like I read another such pamphlet. I was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the responsibilities in my life and I decided to make a list of the pressing ones. The pressing ones, I tell you. Not everything. And not a subdivided list showing the responsibilities in each responsibility. The conclusion: RUN!!!!

I guess the only good thing in this is that none of the snakes appear poisonous. It's all good stuff. But still, they're slithery and there are a lot of them. And peeing in a bucket won't help this time.