Imagine my stunned surprise when I checked the mail at our church and found a letter addressed to me from Kipling’s Who’s Who, an organization of “leading business professionals.”

Apparently I’ve not only been nominated, but my “candidacy” has been approved and will become official upon receipt of the enclosed R.S.V.P. card.

I love the little notice at the bottom of the card. “Please do not confuse Kipling’s Who’s Who with other Mimic Publications.” (Italics and capitalization are theirs)

Ha ha, yuk yuk, yeah, I know this is an old joke. The who’s who scam is the precursor to the modern Nigerian bank account email scam. These things bring up so many fascinating questions.

Can it really be true that there are people out there who still think this is some kind of serious honor that is going to beef up their anemic resumes? Apparently so. This is a direct mail campaign. That’s not cheap. The people who run these things aren't stupid. I doubt they would continue to pay the postage and printing if it didn’t bring some return.

And that means some form of the following conversation is taking place right now:

Dude, I got nominated for Kipling’s Who’s Who.

What’s that?

You know, it’s one of those books for leading business professionals. You get in it, you know, because you’re promising or a leading professional.

Dude, you work at Wal-Mart. I mean, that’s cool, but I’m just saying.

Yeah but I have a college degree. That shows promise. You know, potential.

Well, about every fourth person you meet has a degree of one kind or another. Those who’s who things are totally bogus.

Sure some are, but this is Kipling’s. Isn’t that the real one? I mean I know that name. Wasn’t there a guy named Kipling who was that guy who was famous?

Yeah yeah yeah, uh...Runion Kipling or something. I think I heard that in college. [Get’s a mental image of an explorer wearing a pith helmet with a bushy mustache and pipe.] Yeah, that guy was definitely famous. I think he might have been the first to discover some Oriental country or something.

So that’s what I’m saying. This is Kipling’s Who’s Who. I’m sending in the card. What can it hurt? Could help my resume.

Do you even have a resume?

Not technically, but I’m putting one together. I’m going to get my real estate license and see if I can work for Mitch’s dad.

Yeah, there’s good money in real estate.

You know, I can buy the book with my name in it. There’s all those other business people’s names in it. Could be good contacts. I could send out my resume to them. It’s only 50 bucks. I’m just going to put it on my dad’s card. He won’t know.

Go for it man. What can it hurt?

Nothing. I mean NOTHING is funnier than real life.

rlp

We have a good number of snakes in Texas, though I’ve only had run-ins with a few of them. Luckily, I know just enough about snakes to keep myself reasonably safe.

There are four poisonous snakes in Texas: The Copperhead, the Cotton Mouth (Water Moccasin), the Rattlesnake, and the Coral Snake. The first three are easy to spot because they have the classic, triangular head common to many venomous snakes. You don’t really have to know any more than that here in Texas. If you see a snake with a head that in any way resembles a triangle, run like hell, dumbass!

Now the Coral Snake is a little more difficult to spot. It does not have a triangular head. It has red, black, and yellow stripes. The harmless King Snake also has red, black and yellow stripes, but they are in a different order. Luckily there is a handy little poem to help you keep this straight.

Red touches yellow, kill a fellow.
Red touches black, venom lack.

In my case I’m afraid that in the heat of the moment I might get the poem wrong and say something like:

Red touches black, step back Jack.
Red touches yellow, step up and say hello.

To avoid a potential problem, I simplified the poem to a haiku.

If you see a snake
With stripes red, yellow, and black.
Run like hell, dumbass!

Some years ago, when there were only two sisters and they were both in elementary school, I stepped out the front door and found a full-grown, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake right there on my front porch. I didn’t see him at first. I stretched and yawned, then looked to the side and saw him coiled up about two feet from me.

I’m sorry, were you using this porch?

I leapt inside, spooking both girls. “What’s wrong?” they shouted.

“There’s a Rattlesnake on the front porch.”

Let’s agree that these symbols represent the sound of two girls shrieking and running around in a mad panic:

&*%$#@!*$!