And you thought having a snake in the privy was funny….
“7 Ways Toilets Have Killed People” by Andrew Coletti for PopSci.com. (Opens in a new browser window or tab.)
ENTER A SERPENT
October 1768
In principle, I had no objection to snakes. They ate rats, which was laudable of them, some were ornamental, and most of them were wise enough to keep out of my way. Live and let live was my basic attitude. On the other hand, that was theory. In practice, I had any number of objections to the huge snake curled up on the seat of the privy. Beyond the fact that he was gravely discommoding me at present, he wasn’t usefully eating rats and he wasn’t aesthetically pleasing, either, being a sort of drab gray with darker splotches.
My major objection to him, though, was the fact that he was a rattlesnake. I supposed that in a way it was fortunate that he was; it was only the heartstopping buzz of his rattles that had prevented me sitting on him in the dawn’s early light.
The first sound froze me in place, just inside the tiny privy. I extended one foot behind me, groping gingerly for the doorsill. The snake didn’t like that; I froze again as the warning buzz increased in volume. I could see the vibrating tip of his tail, sticking up like a thick yellow finger, rudely pointing from the heap of coils.
My mouth had gone dry as paper; I bit the inside of my cheek, trying to summon a little saliva.
How long was he? I seemed to recall Brianna’s telling me—from her Girl Scout handbook—that rattlesnakes were capable of striking at a distance up to one-third their own body length. No more than two feet separated my nightgown-covered thighs from the nasty flat head with its lidless eyes.
Was he six feet long? It was impossible to tell, but the squirm of coils looked unpleasantly massive, the rounded body thick with scaled muscle. He was a bloody big snake, and the fear of being ignominiously bitten in the crotch if I moved was enough to make me stand still.
I couldn’t stand still forever, though. Other considerations aside, the shock of seeing the snake hadn’t decreased the urgency of my bodily functions in the slightest.
…………………
DRUMS OF AUTUMN (Outlander, Book 4)
The image of a rattlesnake is a derivative work attributed to Victorrocha. Description: Crotalus cerastes, Mesquite Springs Campground, Death Valley National Park, California. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Crotalus_cerastes_mesquite_springs_CA-2.jpg
Roman toilets image attribution: Fubar Obfusco, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ostia-Toilets.JPG
Photo of an outhouse attributed to Billy Hathorn, Wikimedia Commons License for public use. It ‘was used by sharecroppers and is on display at Louisiana State Cotton Museum in Lake Providence, LA.’ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Outhouse,_Lake_Providence,_LA_IMG_7386.JPG
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