Now I Know Why the Law Says Not to "Molest" Gators

I'm coming off an alligator high. Yesterday, I soared to the zenith of alligator absurdity, when I covered the story of Ghana resident Moses Amanor, who was fined for thrashing the mortal bejeezus out of his sister with the tail of a dead gator. After a peak like that, it's only natural that I would feel at least a mild post-gator crash.

So today I'm starting with something new. Anacondas.

I know what you've been wanting to ask me. "Steve," you've been saying aloud to your monitor, annoying the orderlies and waking the other patients, "your information on mail-order alligators was a godsend. I had been jonesing for a gator of my own for quite some time, yet until I read your important announcement, I had no idea where to buy one online. But tell me, how do I go about obtaining my own 500-pound, 30-foot long killer snake, to keep in my bathtub and call 'Artie'?"

Help is on the way, my friends. It's even easier than buying a gator. For while the authorities have imposed draconian bans on keeping fat, inert lizards that lie pressed against your chain-link fence like enormous turds, they have no problem allowing you to own vicious, voracious snakes that think of your neighbors' pit bulls the way you think of Chicken McNuggets.

I did a fair amount of Googling the other night for your benefit and because I have no discernible life, and I have concluded tentatively that Ray's Reptilia is your best online bet for a good deal on a pet anaconda. Did you click that link? Yes, friends, you read right. Ray will ship an adorable scamp of a baby anaconda to your door for the measly sum of one hundred and sixty dollars.

Don't be misled by the puny three-foot size of these entry-level beauties. I can tell you from personal experience that the more food you pump into a snake, the faster it grows. By feeding your new friend about three times what they recommend in books, you should be able to produce a respectable twelve-foot neck ornament in about a year and a half. After that, it gets more expensive, or you have to start adopting cats.

"Do they bite?" Hell yes, they bite. So do hamsters. What's your point?

Some of you may still not be satisfied. And the obvious reason is that I have not told you where you can get your own diamondback rattlesnake or, if you're a snob, white-lipped tree viper. Fret not. This guy in Missouri has diamondbacks for the low, LOW price of twenty dollars each. That's pick-up only, my friends. UPS will deliver a .50-caliber rifle, a live alligator, or even a $10,000 silicone shemale love doll programmed to call you "Big Daddy," but they have to draw the line somewhere. Whoops, I spoke too soon. Delta Airlines will bring you a white-lipped tree viper, and my guess is, the box will be labeled something like "used books."

I can't believe it's possible to make money selling animals most people want to kill with a hoe. I wonder if it's time for me to open a business, selling loathsome creatures I want to get rid of.

GIANT FLORIDA COCKROACHES, $5 each, shipped to your door. No charge for eggs laid in transit. They fly and smack you in the mouth and eyes, they eat your food, they poop in your cabinets, and when they mistake you for food while you're sleeping, they even bite. Order now; at these prices they won't last long.

FRISKY, BRIGHT-EYED NORWAY RATS, trapped in the cemetery down the street. Do-gooders cleaned up the cemetery, and the rats now have no place to live, so adopt one today and I'll mail it to you in map tube. These rats are very friendly, having lost all fear of man due to advanced rabies.

ANNOYING CENTRAL AMERICAN MILLIPEDES, two dollars a gallon. They climb up your walls. They climb across the ceiling. They fall in your drink. Walk across your living room at night and listen to them crunch. They secrete hallucinogenic compounds, but I am not sure how many you have to eat to get a decent buzz. I would start with a generous handful and work from there.

DELICIOUS BAHAMIAN LAND CRABS, sixty cents each. They look a lot like blue crabs, but they are said to taste more like the rotting garbage which is their natural food. They dig big holes in your yard and then abandon them. They wander into your garage, die behind the dryer, and stink until hell won't have it. Back over them in your driveway, and the claws pop your tires. And God help you if one gets ahold of you.

Guess I'll move on to gators now. And my first story is a beaut. Here is the title: "Palmetto Bluff tests effect of alligators on water quality." Now, I want you to think about that and ask yourself what it implies.

Those of you with dirty and depraved minds, i.e. the overwhelming majority, are correct. Scientists rounded up fifteen alligators in South Carolina and subjected them to demeaning yet hilarious anal probes. Just like Eric Cartman or the unfortunate folks on The X-Files. What is it about the human posterior that aliens find so alluring? How come you never hear about an ear probe or a nose probe or even a simple handshake?

Here's a quote: "The team collected about 15 alligators, swabbing each for stool samples that indicate the amount and types of bacteria contained in the animals' waste."

They make it sound so easy. "Collected" fifteen alligators, "swabbing each" for stool samples. I would have been more honest. I would have said, "Used clubs and ropes to subdue fifteen huge, filthy, terrified reptiles, and then held each one down and rammed a wad of cotton up its behind."

You can imagine what it's like, being one of these gators and then trying to tell your story to the other gators. About how the strange beings in white coats hauled you inside their shiny vehicle and crammed mysterious instruments up your crevice.

I'm no alligator scientist, but I have a question anyway. If you want to find out about germs in alligator poo, isn't it easier to test the poo instead of the angry, thrashing gator itself? I mean, if I had an insatiable craving to understand cow manure, I wouldn't run into a pasture and jam my arm up a bull's ass.

I'll include one more item, simply to continue humiliating cops who call for backup to help them capture alligators the size of teacup poodles. A guy in Brevard County, Florida found a crocodile in his yard while he was on the way to his mailbox. He said, “At first I thought it was an alligator. Then I thought it was a pet Cayman. It looked a little different so I grabbed him, taped him up, and brought him in here."

Attention, doughnut hounds. The other day, it took six Tacoma cops 45 minutes to tackle a two-foot alligator. But one guy in Brevard County took a crocodile down instantaneously, with one hand full of junk mail. And he wasn't even a peace officer. This guy is a veterinarian. Oh, I know. "Our gator was high on PCP!" Whatever. Have another Long John and sit down.

Okay, let's let the gators rest until Monday. Then it's back to work.