As previously reported on Gridskipper and the BoJo Blog, I have a snakes on a plane story of my very own. Well, it's my dad's, but since he died I think it now belongs to my sister and me, at least it does as long as nobody gives the evil ex-stepmother this URL. She's been known to liberate things from time to time, including my parents' wedding presents and heirloom furniture. But enough about her; you want to read about snakes on a PLANE.

Think about this the next time you're tempted to complain because the bag of honey-roasted peanuts was stale and the drinks cart ran out of V8.

My father was a mechanic with Canadian Airlines (later Air Canada). At one point the airline cheaped out and bought four or five used planes from Pakistan International Airlines. When they arrived there was a great deal of work to do to get them in shape, but virtually the first day a mechanic popped the cowling of one of the engines and was greeted by a startled and angry cobra. He didn’t get bit, but they did check the rest of the plane and found quite a few snakes, in fact, stowed away in warm spots. And figuring the others would be in similar shape, they parked the load of them outside in the Canadian winter for a week or so, just to make sure those cobras would be good and dead by the time someone had to work on the damn planes.

BTW the bulkhead between the refuse tanks and the cargo compartment had long since corroded away on a couple of the planes, so the Pakistani passengers’ luggage was essentially stewing in a chilled poop soup for the duration of their flights.