Well, everything seems to be under control around here. Swine flu is getting good and vaccinated, at least among you chirpy, vivacious Younger People. Windows 7 is out, giving us Mac people another great many reasons to direct smug, self-important smirks at each other (try it, it's fun). The Balloon Boy's weird parents will soon be given over to torture, as they should be. Yep, everything would be pretty much as solid as could be expected, were it not for the small flotilla of behemoth Burmese pythons slithering their way from Florida to the Lowcountry to devour us all.
Now, unless you are aficionado of Celtic music or belts, there's really no upside to learning that many thousands of snakes are en route to your town, and yet this may be the case, according to a story last week that has inexplicably not caused residents to scamper chaotically into the streets with curlers in their hair, slippers on their feet and mad rictus grins of horror frozen on their faces. Because, and I want to be absolutely clear on this, SNAKES ARE COMING TO KILL US ALL. You guys have your little slap-fights on the blogs about health care or whatever, I'll be moving all my essential documents, potable water and slow, chewy smaller dogs to the top floor.
Lest you think I am being needlessly alarmist — LEST YOU — I refer you to the a recent study by the U.S. Geological Survey. Oh sure, it may sound wacky, but it's actually a very serious organization, one that is apparently funded by "the federal government" with whatever money has not been allocated to blowing giant holes in our innocent moon.
Survey says two things: 1. No, I am not above pointless game-show references, and 2. The snakes in question are non-native giant constrictors owned by people in south Florida who purchased them as pets and/or conversation pieces, because people in south Florida are incredibly, boundlessly, forehead-slappingly stupid. The non-native snakes, the study continues, are either freed or escape and begin breeding like people in the waiting room at TLC's offices. And at this point they do what most creatures do when they realize they're in south Florida: attempt to flee as quickly as possible, in this case by heading straight up the East Coast.
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