About snake smugglers, snake lines and a rare phobia.
Man and the crooked things – there are stories to tell again this week: About the police in Regensburg. There, a patrol discovered five live cobras in a car in a freeway parking lot earlier this week. Although the two inmates initially stated that they had “no prohibited objects” with them, this can be a motivational boost for many emergency workers. And voilá: The dead python was already discovered in a styrofoam box in the trunk. Since a dead reptile is almost a forbidden object, the police officers didn’t give up – and voila: The five live spectacled snakes were already discovered in the box on the back seat.
No spectacled snakes in the literal sense, but real, poisonous cobras that they wanted to sell in Germany. Apart from the fact that the plan to feed the dead python to the cobras sounds pretty stupid: trading in these animals is forbidden, so the two smugglers didn’t have to start a discussion as to whether a reptile was an object or not.
A 78-year-old who was stopped by the police near Freiburg this week also had a problem with snakes. Unlike in Regensburg, however, it was not Commissioner Chance who was the lead investigator, but rather attentive witnesses. They had noticed that a burgundy small car was winding its way around Bad Krozingen on only three wheels, which not only seems like a crooked thing, but also forbidden. The police thought so too – and pulled the driver, who couldn’t get out of the way quickly enough because of the restrictions mentioned, along with the small car.
When it comes to crooked things, TV chef Meta Hiltebrand also gets down to business. The Swiss has a banana phobia, as she told SWR in an interview. “If someone unwraps a banana near me, I leave the room,” said the 38-year-old. She then gets an oppressive feeling, nausea, is completely dazed and can no longer speak. You just can’t stand the smell. “I have no idea where it comes from, but it’s been like that for me for as long as I can remember.” At least, she’s not a case for the couch because of her aversion to bananas, because not only good things take time, they take time also time until such a crooked thing is peeled: “If someone comes near me with a banana, I’ll just leave quickly.” If it were always that easy. Boris Halva
