Snake in my mailbox

As any of us who have a Gmail account know, we receive badly targeted marketing messages on a daily basis. (For example, a friend’s email to me about an upcoming movie titled ‘The Slammin’ Salmon’ came with an offer to go on a salmon fishing vacation…in Quebec! Sacre bleau!)

Well, I was recently watching some videos about venomous snakes on YouTube (I consider myself somewhat of an amateur herpetologist) and a display ad popped up on the bottom of the video screen that told me to, “check out shopping.com for the best prices on black mambas.”

I am pretty sure that New York state has laws against owning venomous snakes, and against bringing introduced species into the local ecosystem, and I would also really fear for the fellow in the warehouse who had to package my new Black Mamba should I buy one.

I was dismayed, however, when I did go to shopping.com to find that a black mamba is also the name of a type of djembe (an African percussion instrument) manufactured by instrument maker Toca, and that I cannot in fact purchase the snake there. Maybe next time.