Tag Archives: rats

Cobra

Cobra: (n) a highly venomous snake

Trying to maintain my status as a man of faith, I often find myself wading through some murky swamps of religious jargon.

This has tempted me, a time or two, to drain those swamps and start building my own condos. Yet I know deep in my soul that I have felt guidance, been inspired and in some strange sense, been redeemed.

Yet when I consider the cobra, I become baffled.

I don’t like snakes. I’m not ashamed of that. I don’t feel less manly by admitting it. I think they’re creepy. I think they know they’re creepy.

After all, if your only communication is hissing, your means of transportation is slithering and you choose to bite other people, you may have proven yourself to be unworthy for planet consideration.

Just my opinion.

And this becomes truly, astronomically intolerable when it comes to the cobra. No longer will the cobra stay on the ground, but decides to lift itself up into some sort of unholy erection. Then it flares its head in anger, and spits its venom at you.

Yes–there are spitting cobras.

So even if you feel you stood back far enough, you still could be splatted by the nasty varmint.

I do not know what the purpose of the cobra is. I’m sure it could be explained to me. Maybe they eat tons and tons of rats. But if it were my choice, I would rather find a different way to be rid of the rat population than by introducing a creature which insists on being addressed as “King Cobra.”

 

Donate Button

Bubonic Plague

j-r-practix-with-border-2

Bubonic plague: (n) the most common form of plague in humans, characterized by the formation of buboes

I suppose I could sit here and rattle off information about the bubonic plague based upon what I know, and try toDictionary B illuminate you on the dangers of a sickness that has not infested the Earth for hundreds of years.

Rats.

I mean–rats, I’m not going to do that.

Or you can assume I mean, rats are what caused it.

And since rats did spread the bubonic plague, somebody eventually stopped the human death toll by increasing the death toll of rats.

Wherever there are rats, there is the danger of sickness. And what are the characteristics of rats?

They hang around foul and vile substances, nibbling on them until they, themselves, become filled with the venom of disease. So when they interact with others, they spread their infection, even though for some reason it does not kill them.

Rats are immune to their own “rattiness.”

So even though the bubonic plague still exists–and I’m sure they have samples of it in laboratories where they study its composition and dangers–there are other rats we should watch out for. These are the creatures who claim to be human, but nibble on nastiness and bite people, inflicting them with indifference.

Let me just say–damn it to hell, people are just not generous to one another any more.

The rats have gotten to us.

So even though it’s unlikely that any of us will get bubonic plague, it’s still a good idea to dodge the rats.

You just never know what they’ve been slurping up. 

Donate ButtonThank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix 

 

 

Aluminum

dictionary with letter A

Aluminum: (n) the chemical element of atomic number 13, a light silvery-gray metal, the most abundant metal in the earth’s crust, obtained mainly from bauxite

It is amazing how words, ideas and concepts are all related to our personal experience rather than the reality of what they may be.

For after all, hearing the word aluminum, I might think of cans of soda, which I certainly have enjoyed over the years.

I might conjure an image of aluminum siding, which permeated the thinking of my townfolk growing up, as everyone deliberated whether it was a good alternative to the peeling paint on their wooden homes or the crumbling mortar on their brick ones.

But for me the word “aluminum” has an entirely different representation.

When I was a kid I lived in a household where various plans were hatched to attempt to make extra money or projects were pursued which were deemed worthy of our attention because they were new and innovative.

For instance, my dad bought a piece of multi-colored plastic which he was convinced could be placed over our television set to give the illusion of color TV without having to buy one of those more expensive brands. But of course, all it did was make the picture appear like fruit-striped gum.

Likewise, somewhere along the line my dad devised a plan to build a storehouse for boats to be held during the winter months in Ohio, when things were not sea-worthy. (Or since Ohio is landlocked, shall we say “lake-worthy?”)

This was an investment. And I remember that the main part of the investment involved purchasing huge sheets of corrugated aluminum to place on the building to protect it from the elements.

Well, here’s what happened. My dad laid the foundation for the warehouse, put up the boards for the framing and ran out of money before all of the aluminum could be attached. Even though he did put a couple of ships into the lean-to, it was never completed, and piles of the aluminum material were stacked nearby. They seemed to stay there forever.

Matter of fact, they remained long enough to become the home for all sorts of vermin: spiders, rats, possum, raccoons–any number of less-than-fortunate creatures from the animal kingdom did their wintering underneath the pile of my dad’s ignored aluminum.

So to this day, I cannot hear the word “aluminum” without a chill traveling down my spine … as I wonder what’s going to crawl out and bite me.