yesterday we were talking about the deadly business of raising a child

and Dan was talking about his terror of the ocean. He is really not at all keen on the sea, and he was talking about his Worry that, in some kind of Hypothetical certainly not going to happen future, him and mae and their children would live by the sea in South Africa, and their kid would go into that same sea, and be be eaten by a shark.
"South Africa is their Disneyland," is what he said. At first I thought he meant that South Africa is a child's Disneyland, but really he was referring to Great Whites.
When asked how to get around this problem, he said, "well, it's very easy, I just won't ever let it go into the sea."
Then Mae said, "oh PLEASE, there are hundreds of things in South Africa that can kill you.Just before she came here, Rosie nearly stood on a puff adder, and she CERTAINLY would have died."*

and then we both looked at him like YA YOU SEE. and he just looked bewildered and said, "Well I just won't let it go there then either."
Mae said, "it's not that simple, Dan."
and he just looked bewildered again and said, "But why not?"
I spose i can see his point, when you look at it like that.

This is a photo of the scene of the crime. That whole path is just teeming with puff adders.



* this is not true. I did nearly stand on one, but there's no way I would have even come close to dying. I just would have been a person who had been bitten by a puff adder, which would be pretty grim, but not the worst. Their wikipedia entry says that they can "bite through soft leather", like that's the scariest thing you ever heard. It is quite scary, I spose, but it's a snake. As far as Terrible Things An Animal Can Do go, that's really not so bad.