A pet snake that stowed away on an Australian woman's car would have made a clean escape had it not tried to imitate her windshield wipers.
Down under in Australia, even driving to and from the supermarket can mean risking one's life. Just ask Toni O'Sullivan, a Melbourne resident who believes in playing it safe – she even drives a Volvo!
The Swedish auto has earned a reputation for safety over the years but who knew our animal friends could appreciate them as well? One such discriminating critter – a snake that presumably escaped from a nearby home – decided Ms O'Sullivan's vehicle was his ticket to freedom.
Our tail, er, tale begins one otherwise unremarkable Sunday afternoon when Ms O'Sullivan parked her Volvo Coupe in the shade along Bridport Street and went shopping for “about 20 minutes”.
After she returned to her car and began to drive home, however, the thumb-less hitchhiker decided it was time to catch the breeze. “I looked over to my left and thought I saw some movement out of the side of my eye,” related Ms O'Sullivan to the Brisbane Times newspaper. “I thought maybe it was a leaf, and so I let it go. By now it's coming up the windscreen and it's looking right at me. I thought 'oh Jesus what do I do now, do I go home, do I drive to the zoo?'”
If you're wondering why the driver was freaking out over a small snake separated from her by a glass car windshield, well, remember which continent we're talking about. “In (the state of) Victoria, if you see a snake there's a 99 per cent chance it will be venomous,” advised a local snake catcher. “So always consider it dangerous and call a snake catcher,” added the snake catcher.
That's just what Ms O'Sullivan did, after managing to pull over near some helpful construction workers armed with shovels. The workers taped off the area around the snake-infested Volvo and everyone – snake included – waited patiently for the snake catcher to arrive. “It's not poisonous, not venomous, not dangerous,” determined the snake catcher after inspecting the stowaway serpent. “It's somebody's pet, that's why I'd like to find the owner. Pet snakes are sneaky little buggers and they tend to escape from their enclosures, it's just one of those things, they are cheeky.” The snake catcher then gently took the peeved python into custody (handcuffs not required) while leaving a number for the owner to call.
