What the *@$%!?!?!

My two biggest fears on earth:

Snakes and butter.

Ignoring the second one for now, it’s suffice to say that I have a debilitating pathological fear of most reptiles, and snakes far and away top the list. If I see one in the paper (and the Metro here seems to be full of snake-related stories) I scream like a girl, fling the offending page as far as possible and try to regain some measure of composure on a packed train.

I’m sure they don’t like me much either, but I make it a point to keep away from the vile creatures if they follow suit, and so far it’s been a rewarding mutual understanding.

Which begs the question: Why, oh why, would some twisted, depraved deity have pulled such a prank on me?!?

I was happily walking along one of the Jubilee Bridges yesterday, in what turned out to be a glorious evening, fully enjoying life for the first time after a few long, hard weeks at work. Finding myself in high spirits I decided to take in the London sunset and fill myself with the buzz of the city, so I stopped along the bridge to admire the paintings of one of the artists who litter the South Bank and the surrounding area.

It was then that I turned to the person standing at my right shoulder, and came face to face with a creature from the pits of hell.

Oh, I’m sure that underneath it all she’s a pleasant enough individual. But, for the love of all that’s holy, why did she have to be wearing a wolf’s head for a helmet while holding Satan’s love-child at eye-level!?

Yes. She was wearing a wolf’s snarling head over her own. And cradling a fricken’ snake. At eye-level. My eye-level. Within touching / snapping / biting / striking / devouring distance.

Seeing a snake was bad enough. Turning into a Gorgon with a decapitated wolf adorning her head at point-blank-range was bad enough. Both together was unbearable.

I freaked. Not in a screaming kind of way. In a very serene-two-hour-walk-home-before-dissolving-into-a-puddle-of-tears-and-piss kind of way.

I’m investing in a mongoose. One that’s been modified to fight an anaconda. I’ll call him Arnold.

And no, I don’t care what anybody thinks of me taking my mongoose with me on the train. If somebody can dress up like a cross between a lamprey and a werewolf while walking around in public with a snake at head height then I’m sure that a frikkin’ mongoose will be the least of this city’s worries!