Talking Shit with a Yank & a Brit - 35. Leo Pig Pants

Episode Date: January 18, 2024

This week we're bitching about the weather, ranting about Mean Girls, the Opopop saga continues and we hear about Rattlesnake Kate!Send us your story requests, dilemmas, questions or queries to [e-mail] or on socials @TSYBPOD

hello you lovely listeners welcome back to another episode of talking shit where they with a yank and a brat. How are you doing? I'm good. That was very, like, old school news reporter. It was a bit, wasn't it? I liked it. It was like... Oh, good. I just kind of freestyled. It's roaring 1920s and we're here at the Chicago State Fair

looking at all of the modern and futuristic inventions of the world's leading inventors and entrepreneurs. This is what we call a refrigerator. You can keep your food nice and cold all the time without having to put it in the shed outside. It's smart. Covetous. How are you doing? I am well.

Good. I am well we were just talking offline about uh how cold it is here and how I've had to put on many layers for this conversation but it would appear that you're slightly colder there just a bit yeah just a bit like what did I tell you negative 19 celsius compared to your above zero yeah i mean we're three degrees celsius it does say it feels like zero though so that helps ridiculous numbers no matter what yeah it's too cold for uh fun activities apart from, I guess, skiing. There's no snow here. Oh, is all your snow gone? Oh, yeah, it's gone, yeah.

It lasted approximately four hours. Found a lot that lasted. It was good. I did need to get snowed in, though, at one of my lessons, which is in quite a rural location. Oh, okay. It was like with the what what the one inch you've got yeah so it snowed it was snowing a little bit in the morning and then i went to go and get the lesson and then while i got there it just it was like a whiteout and we were looking over the fields and i was like oh damn it's really snowing now okay this

is unexpected because it was only meant to snow for an hour. And, yeah, it's quite rural and their driveway is like a real slope. Oh, no. And I parked on that and I came out to my car and the whole driveway was covered in snow and my car was covered in snow and I was like, oh, fuck. And it actually settled on the roads as well, which never happens. Were you like, I live here now, I guess.

Yeah, I was like, well, I'm going to be here forever. Make me some food. Until the spring thaws our cold, cold grounds and our cold, cold hearts. Yep. I am cold hearted anyway and cold blooded. Hey, that is a maybe good foreshadow for today's conversation oh is it i won't get into it just yet because i know our listeners at home really only tune in to listen to us bitch about the weather um so we have to keep that up for a little bit longer i think um we've got about an inch of snow

now um which is pretty unusual for us we have a lot more but it is very cold um it's been pretty mild up until this point and i hate it so cool yeah have you got a blowtorch yet to blowtorch your garden and the driveway? I've seen videos of people doing that and I think it's a great idea. Are we talking like a flamethrower? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Fucking flamethrower.

Flamethrower. I mean, I will never be amazed at the stupidity and ingenious of the human mind. I'll say that. We have a snowblower and a shovel and sometimes we use a broom because it's really not that much snow. And that's been about, I broke the broom because I was just like aggressively sweeping too hard. Doesn't surprise me. Yeah. Well, I do everything aggressively pretty much.

You are just aggressive. aggressive yeah that is me um no blowtorch though or flamethrower i'm not even sure where i'd get one to be honest probably just walmart where i can buy guns as well they sell guns there so i'm sure they sell flamethrowers yeah yeah absolutely um in other news i'd like to just have a little rant about something oh yeah what's bothering you today they're remaking mean girls and i'm really upset about it i don't feel like it needs a remake it only came out a year ago i don't know what's happening yeah i'm with you there i um i agree do we know if it's a full remake or just like uh another story a full remake and you know the teachers that are in it yeah so the tina fey and uh yeah, she's the one who actually wrote it.

Oh, shit. Well, her and the other guy, the other teacher, are reprising their roles as the same characters. Yep. I'm just like, just... That was a dumb question of me to ask because now that I think about it, I watched a preview or a trailer

and they did refer to the main character as Regina George. it yeah you're right it's a remake I just feel it's very I get some remakes like fair enough um but I just I don't think Mean Girls needs to be remade it's perfect as it is and I don't think it's like aged that much. Do you know what I mean? You could just re-release it and it would still work, I think. Yeah. Well, I think we're going to have to watch it and see now how it's updated. But I agree. It's not that old. Like you said, it's a year old, maybe even less.

And I think it still holds up. But I will give it a chance i'm not gonna like go see it in the theater because who does that anymore i will wait until i can stream it from the comfort of my couch with my pop oh pop pop i mean um how's that going? Are you still obsessed? Yes. I actually am embarrassed to tell you the degree to which I've continued to support their business since we've talked a week ago. You posted me one yet. Come on. I haven't because I did look into the fact that they only ship to Canada and the US right now. So I would have to mail you one, but I will if you want. It's going to be costly.

It'll cost too much. I probably won't use it. Oh, that makes me sad. I bet you would. I bet you would. Okay. I mean, I like popcorn as much as the next woman, but I'll either post you one or I'll bring one. I'll bring you a full-ass kit

when I come over. I'll bring you a full-ass kit when I come over. I'll bring a whole suitcase just for Oat Pop Pop products. Yeah, that's it. I'm going to check my biggest suitcase, pack it to the weight limit of Oat Pop Pop. Okay. I mean, popcorn's very light, so you can bring a lot. I got the bowls, and I'm going to be bringing various flavors, multiple of various flavors. I'm probably going to have to bring a couple bowls because in addition

to giving one to you, I'm going to have to give it to like everybody. So. True. Yeah. I didn't consider that. That's fair enough. Yeah. Well, I appreciate your effort. Yeah. I got you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Yeah. I expect free entry into your gig. You can. Yay. I'll probably bring popcorn for the audience.

Yay. I'll just bring my suitcase and ask if the pub or the bar has a microwave. That's all I need. I guess I could bring my own too. I could pack a microwave. I could blow up. I can probably supply the microwave. Okay, good. Mine would blow up because of the differences in yeah electrical yeah probably wouldn't work

might be tricky getting that through customs as well um i mean if i give them opop maybe they'll let me maybe yeah maybe maybe bribing customs with opop it's become a currency for me i'll be like excuse me ma'am i don't know what this is it's popcorn it's the greatest popcorn in the world that's when you'll lose your shit yeah what you don't know opop what is wrong with you have you been under a rock okay enough about that oh i like hearing about opop well we'll do it every episode how do you pronounce it i'm pretty sure it's oh pop pop but for a while i was like pop pop and i looked at videos and basically they're like we don't care how you pronounce it as long as you remember it and love us so but it's oh pop pop i wonder why they went with oh pop pop is there something else called oh pop i don't know do you think hey

people at oh pop pop tell us get in touch tell us about the origins of the name please in fact we'd like to interview you yeah that'd be great we've got probably some flavor ideas we could talk about too you know again we're uh back to talking about women this episode right oh the sexy ladies oh the sexy ladies oh the sexy ladies it's my turn though and i got a story story for you exciting now sit back with your oh pop pop get comfy don't have an oh pop pop just pretend i don't ship to england i thought about having it for me but then i was like i'm gonna be eating and talking and that's gonna be really obnoxious for people. It's going to be really crunchy. Yeah, and I don't eat popcorn cutely or gently. It's like shoveling it in my mouth.

Choke a little bit. Okay, so I'm going to tell you about a lady named Kate McHale Slaughterback. Slaughterback? Yeah.

That's her name. Sexy. And there's a lot of different things about that name that seem kind of relevant given the story, but you're going to have to wait and see, so hold on to your butt. Should I know her? No.

Well, if you did, I would be impressed, but not surprised given kind of what I've learned about her. But if you don't, I'm also, I didn't know about her until we started looking up women to talk about. All right. But I was intrigued by her, not only because of her story, but also, you know, I like her name, Kate. Yep. And Slaughterback is a fucking cool ass name. That is a fucking good name. Go change my name to that i think i think

you should i'm gonna so stay tuned um so but you know she was born in 1893 so we're gonna be going back a ways can i guess where yeah go ahead mississippi tell me why you think that i don't know i just got a feeling intuition i think it's a good guess but wrong so wrong but uh she was born in july 25th 1893 which would uh make her a leo born in the year of the and old she's dead um born in the year of the pig boar if you follow chinese zodiac at all um she was born as kate mckayle in longmont colorado which is i've been there it's a nice town nice yeah colorado's great state longmont's nice got some breweries there i think that's where left-hand brewery is if i recall correctly but i could be wrong and if i I'm wrong, don't correct me. Just let me think that. Because I think we've talked about this a few times, I'm going to tell you a little bit about her signs. People born in the year of the pig are said to be generous, trustworthy, warm-hearted,

kind, pleasant. They put other people first. They look out for others first they like to they look for like having a long life but not to the detriment of other people and as a leo you know she's loyal confident generous tends to be drawn towards drama fueled romances oh uh you know renowned for stability being a dedicated friend and celebrated in the tarot as a strength card. Classic pig behavior. Classic pig Leo behavior, if you will. Sorry, yeah. So when she was two years old, her mother died in childbirth, which was pretty common.

Not with her, I'm assuming. No, she was two, so it was one of her siblings. Very long labor. pretty common no she was two so it was one of her siblings and i actually very long labor that she somehow managed to survive herself i mean it could have been i don't know but she did have two brothers so one of them could have been the one and yeah yeah and uh she was raised by her father and her grandparents in color. And they're born, she lived in a cabin because it was the 1800s. Yeah.

She grew up and studied to be a nurse and worked as such during World War I, where she, you know, worked at a hospital in Aurora, attending to wounded soldiers, you know, kind of legend. Kind of legend. Yep. Good for her. But she was actually described as kind of being really like atypical for women of the time. She was a skilled taxidermist, which is something that women didn't do. Going to college in and of itself was kind of unusual. So the fact that she studied and worked as a nurse for a while was kind of weird.

And she frequently wore pants, which was another thing that was noted to be really odd for women how dare we put things on both our legs yep terrible behavior that woman's wearing pants must be a man look at that really feminine looking man over there he must be a man because he's wearing pants that's how that's how we identify gender then yep um but all of the sources that i used today really kind of honed in on the fact that she was rather different than most women of the time because of some of those things she also uh was married and divorced six times what which i'll refer back to the tendency towards drama fueled romances oh yes of course leo pig mm-hmm the leo pig one of her husbands was called jack slaughterback which is kind of how she ended up with that name right she was like i'm keeping that motherfucking name because

this one's too badass for me to get rid of. He was her second husband. When they married, they moved to Hudson, Colorado, but then he left her when she was on her own. Did all these men die in mysterious ways? Didn't have a lot of information about the men, but according to at least one of the sources that I had, this guy left her. He was like, deuces. And my guess is because she was pretty independent and was like, I don't need you. And he's like, you wear a lot of pants and I need to see you a little bit. He's like, can you stop stealing my pants? Yep.

And I don't know if you're a man or a woman. I'm confused now. So bye. But the stories aren't about her six husbands. Okay. Sorry. Getting carried away with the Leo pig and the husbands. The pants.

And so grew up poor. She continued to struggle throughout her life, but was generally able to take care of herself. She even adopted a child named Ernie, who apparently was a neighbor's son. And they're like, we can't take care of our baby. So she's like, well,

I'm poor, but come on, I'll take care of them. It's fine. So she adopted this kid. It was just her and her kid. She's taking care of them. So fine so she adopted this kid off it was just her and her kid she's taking care of them so single mother of the time too which my guess is you know probably a little bit taboo or unusual as well around the pole um and she was said to be a good shot which i think also was another reason why she was considered atypical or a unique woman and this skill she really just was a sharpshooter so her skills were wasted as a nurse she should have been a frontline soldier they didn't allow well then nope um and this skill plus her taxidermy kind of being independent

being able to make things work really served her well for the story I'm going to tell you, which is what made her famous. These skills also enabled her to take care of herself and her child as a dirt farmer. As a what? A dirt farmer. What do you think a dirt farmer is? I don't know, but I thought you said a turd farmer. I was like, that's not a thing. Someone needs to make the manure for fertilizing.

A dirt farmer. Yep. Well, yeah, I'm just thinking of, you know, manure now. Composting. That's not it. But, I mean, if you had to guess and it's not that, what would you guess a dirt farmer to be? No. Potatoes. I literally thought it was someone who farmed dirt okay so they just go around people's houses and collect dust you're like

oh this is really good dirt i'm gonna take this and grow it no it's actually like slang for basically a farmer who doesn't have any hired hands can't use or afford to use irrigation basically really also poor like a poor farmer who can't have help and yeah um yeah a subsistence farmer a farmer with no hired hands too poor to use or unable to use irrigation and i said poor as she was uh she also reportedly lived in a chicken coop while she was building her home well can't blame her really probably quite warm in there at night i suppose she's got a limb with her hens yeah got an egg she can just reach over and yeah i guess i don't know some eggs in the morning yep she also dabbled in making moonshine and made it in her goat pen and then i wrote in

parentheticals ew um but she did this because the smell of the goats covered up the smell of the still which was actually really smart and this was during prohibition era so she had to be careful about it yeah so gal made moonshine good at shooting, was a farmer. Wears pants. Wears pants, taxidermist. Single mom. Left by her husband but adopted the neighbor's kid. A weirdo.

She was a weirdo. Absolutely crazy. These things are not why I'm talking about her today because she actually is known for something that is like bonkers, in my opinion. She earned a pretty cool nickname during her lifetime stemming from this event that occurred. You know, I guess I didn't do the math, but sometime during her lifetime. And she is known today as Rattlesnake Kate. Okay. All right right how do you feel about snakes um i mean i don't i don't love them but i don't think i'm scared of them we don't

really get many here um i stroked one once and they're not as slimy as you think they're gonna be tell me the circumstances under which you stroked a snake, which sounds like a really... Is that like something dirty? I stroked that trouser snake. It was... I think it was like some petting zoo. Okay. Some animal thing.

So you didn't just see a snake in a while and you're like no can't pet that snake no i've seen the odd adder which they're poisonous right they are and they live in the rape seed bushes yeah and like on heather and things and they're you know it's a little bit shocking but they're also more scared of you than you're them so they just tend to slither off pretty quickly right man i assume you have kind of your reaction is like i'll just go that way yeah i'll just walk in the other direction how do you feel about snakes so i think like you i i don't love them but they're not like i don't react to them the same way i do like certain spiders bugs that sort of thing you know but i also like it we garter snakes are probably primarily

what i've encountered in the wild they're pretty harmless little sneaky guys little baby ones i think i can probably tolerate a little bit more than the big ones um yeah all that is to say is i can't say i'm like a huge fan but i'd probably win in a fight i'm gonna kick it or run the other way you know yeah i mean don't get me wrong if i came across like a you know an anaconda or a fucking great big python i'd probably be quite scared of that oh do you know what actually i read something once you know when you just like there's certain things in your life that you read or you see and it just sticks with you yep forever yeah that's why i'm good at trivia yeah you are good

at trivia here's another fact for you it's not actually a fact it was just you know like in like kids not kids magazines but like teenage magazines when we were growing up teen cosmo yeah like we had one called miz and uh miz like m-i-s-s like 17 and yeah m-i-z-z was. Things like that. Oh, because it's cool. Yeah, duh. And they had a section that was like, you know, fascinating stories or what have you. And it was, actually I have two stories. So the one in the magazine was a picture of a guy that had been swallowed whole by an anaconda or some sort of python and like he'd gone missing from this hiking group or whatever

they were doing in the jungle and then they found this snake and cut it open and this guy was just like dead, crushed inside this fucking huge snake oh yeah he was fully dead help me help me that's what I was hoping for help me Help me, I'm so scared.

That's what I was hoping for. Help me, I'm so scared to sleep. And you just like see a hand push against it. Out. Yep. In fact, he broke his way out with a pocket knife. Just slashed his way out. Yep.

And then there was also a, I'm pretty sure this is like an urban myth but there was a story going around of someone who had a pet python i have a story for you too oh i wonder if it's the same one maybe um and i think i don't know it was someone at university they had a pet python and woke up in the middle of the night and the snake was lying next to her or him. And sizing him up. Yeah. Went, like, talked to a vet about it and was like, I woke up in the middle of the night and my python was, like, lying next to me on the bed. It was really weird. And they're like, oh, yeah, that's because it's working out whether it can eat you whole basically

that's what that was so enjoy um my story is about i have encountered i think it was a python at my university when i was in college someone a friend of a friend of a friend roommate had one and we were over there one night and I was like, fuck that snake. And then I later learned years later that he was killed by his snake because it strangled him in front of people. And they didn't know what was happening until it was too late. Yes. Oh my God. I know a couple of people who know the story or also like met the snake and that guy

might listen and if there's more to it that i'm not remembering or if i got it wrong you'll have to let me know and i'll correct it next time but like i remember hearing from my friends later like yeah he died because of that snake fucking hell yep yep i thought you were gonna tell me the story that i almost kind of personally experienced all right so the moral of this story is don't have pet pythons yeah i think that's reasonable yeah i think that is reasonable don't have poisonous pets well it's not poisonous but pets that are gonna eat you yeah pets that are gonna eat you um well we're not allowed tigers or lions sorry back to the story. We digress.

I think that was a good digression, though. But back to the story and just another quick pivot. I kept typing rattlesnack. Sounds tasty. I was like, okay, snake. But the name rattlesnake stems from the rattle-like tail, which probably we all knew. rattlesnake stems from the rattle-like tail, which probably we all knew. One thing I didn't know is that it's actually interlocking rings made of keratin, which Gemma, you might know, is what our hair, skin, and nails are made of. So we have that in common with rattlesnakes.

But they're interlocking rings that when the snake holds up its tail and vibrates it, the rings move and click together, and that's what makes the noise which i thought they just had beads i know that's what i thought too to be honest they just had little beads floating around little colorful beads that if you opened it it's like oh like an actual rattle you know yeah but the other thing is it's more of a hissing noise rather than a rattling noise which i suppose you could kind of maybe, they sound kind of similar. And that's what they use to ward off predators. So, you know, you hear that noise, people are supposed to be like, fuck, there's a rattlesnake here. But I think there's another snake out there that is kind of like, yes, yep. And so, but best practice is just to go the other way regardless.

Each time they molt or shed their skin, another ring is added to its tail, which is another fun fact. But that's not a really good way to tell how old it is because those rings also fall off as they get older too. So gross. There are about 32 to 45 species of rattlesnake and most live in Arizona. So thinking about where Kate is at in Colorado, obviously she's got one of the ones that don't. And the largest species of rattlesnake is known as one you've probably heard of, the Western diamondback rattlesnake. And it's known for its horns and sidewinding maneuvers. So it's the one that goes like this. No, thank you. Yeah.

Hard pass. Gross. Horns. Like, ew. They hear by sensing vibrations through their jawbones. And deadly rattlesnake bites are pretty rare because we're taught to fear them. And they, like you said earlier, are taught to never really seek humans out. So they're more scared of us than them. And they see in, like, heat stealing my thing sorry yeah great good job you know a little bit about snakes um

thank you uh but basically most of the people who get bitten are because they accidentally stumbled upon one and i'm taking it like literally stumbled upon one or you're fucking around and finding out by trying to handle one because you're an idiot so um that said if you're bitten it's advised you take your ass straight to the hospital are they like the super poisonous ones in that like if you get bitten your blood just fucking turns to stone i guess i didn't look up too much about what happens when you get bitten but i do think you have a little time post getting bit that you can make it to a hospital and be fine because I don't think a ton of people have died from rattlesnake bites.

It's also advised if you hear rattlesnakes don't stick around, they can strike at a speed of five-tenths of a second or 0.5 seconds or in another context, strike at two to three feet per second, which is 1.4 to two miles per hour, which is pretty fast. It's fast. Their fangs have hinges, like doors. What? Yeah. This makes it so their fangs can lie flat in their upper jaw when the mouth is closed, which is, if you think about it, would be kind of funny if we just saw snakes. Just like the cut teeth.

Yep. And they spring forward. Just like the cut teeth. Yep. And they spring forward. Just poke out the snake. Just like, I'll get myself. Fuck. It's a walrus snake. Yep. But they spring forward perpendicularly

when they strike. So it's just like. That's cool. They're called the soleinoglyphus snake, which means snakes with teeth and burra. Yeah, snakes with big fangs. Big snakes with fangs and teeth. And they belong to the viper family. Their fangs are hollow and sharp, like a hypodermic needle, which is how they inject venom.

And they have vertical pupils, unlike grass snakes, but like cats. And this enables them to ambush their prey because it aids in depth perception. Female rattlesnakes also have live birds. I thought all snakes laid eggs. Not female rattlesnakes. They gestate for 90 days with the eggs inside them. And they literally give birth of live ones born in little membranes that that little babies have to like poke holes in in order to get out of yeah that's crazy they also only give birth really every two years which i guess i can't say blame them considering probably what that process is like for them. Yeah. And baby rattlers are still dangerous, even though the larger

older, more mature snakes have more venom. Oh, I bet they're quite cute, the little baby ones with the little baby rattles. Yeah, it's probably just one or two little ones that just click together. They also have facial pits,

like armpits, but face pits that sense heat, which is what you were talking about earlier. They're sensitive pits on the side of their head, which make smaller animals visible to them, even in complete darkness. And the prey needs only to be slightly warmer than its surroundings for the snake to detect it. So I think that's what you were talking about earlier. They basically have night vision. Clever little fuckers. And one final fact about rattlesnakes um another similarity to cats which is that they have a jacobson's organ or a vomeronasal organ

which is the in the roof of their mouth which helps them detect taste smell substances in the air so if you've ever seen a cat like smell something and then have its mouth slightly open yeah and look kind of ridiculous that's the jacobson's organ dogs have those as well they do yeah you see them go oh just a little air taste yeah i'm like what the fuck are you doing it's because they're smelling with their mouth yeah um you most commonly probably see it when cats like smell their butts and then they're like and our response is does that smell buddy does that smell mr chips yeah i bet it does okay okay okay enough about snakes back to kate sorry i just thought that would be interesting to talk about i'm gonna be really disappointed if there's no snakes in this story now

no we'll be prepared to be disappointed no so how she earned her name on october 28th 19 oh 1865 i put 1965 i don't think that's accurate let me double check that real quick uh do do do gotta fact check myself Do-do-do, gotta fact check myself. Do-do-do, 1925. So I got, okay, it's 1925, not 1965. Just had a moment of dyslexia. So still well before we were born.

Kate set out with Ernie, who was only three at the time, on horseback towards a lake near their farm. The day prior, some hunters were out duck hunting. I guess it was duck season, and she and Ernie were hoping to get some like left behind ducks uh i assume live ones to keep his pets because surely nothing horrible happened to those ducks no it was for food i think they're hoping to keep the chickens company yeah absolutely um and the goats i guess yeah but uh because she you know was poor i suppose she was just hoping that maybe some of the hunters missed some ducks and they were going to go find some. Well, instead of encountering ducks, she and Ernie encountered over a hundred migrating rattlesnakes. Oh, shit. Can you imagine what that looks like?

Yeah. Christ. I'd think the end of the world was coming. Yeah. And, you know, turn around on your fucking horse. Yeah. Christ. I'd think the end of the world was coming. Yeah. And, you know, turn around on your fucking horse with your baby and leave. One source says that she basically got off her horse to unlock a gate to pass through. And the noise caused a snake to appear. And being the independent badass woman she is she takes her 22

rifle and shoots it because that's her response yeah and that noise prompted several more to come out of the bushes and underlying brush and she did you shoot my friend motherfucker yeah pretty much they're like what's going on earl no. So she proceeds to dispatch those snakes as well. But what happens is Moore kept coming and she eventually runs out of bullets because I suppose she probably doesn't have hundreds and hundreds of bullets on her. smart that she brought her gun my first question was like oh you're going to get some dead ducks with your three-year-old and you need to bring your rifle okay but i guess he lived in like the wild frontier um you've got to be prepared for all situations you know yeah that's fair so she ran out of ammo and you know i guess what does kate do next but grab a sign supposedly legend has it that it said no hunting on it and she grabs the sign and starts just fucking bludgeoning these snakes to death just hitting the fuck out of them um like trying to attack her or just chilling you know i suppose i suppose depending on like this the size of the space

where they're at and she was at if they were like literally in the heart of it you know the snakes are probably going to go towards you rather than away like if you're coming across one and it hears you it's going to skitter away but i don't know yeah so she continues to just hit these snakes and does so for two hours it took her two. And she later told a reporter, I fought them with a club not more than three feet long, whirling constantly for over two hours before I could kill my way out of them and get back to my faithful horse and Ernie, who were staring

at me during my terrible battle, not more than 60 feet away. She's like, what the fuck is this? Her horse is just like chewing and her kid's just like picking his nose, watching her. Mama, we there yet? Mommy, okay. Can you stop playing with your snakes?

Let's go. Cartoons are on. I'm hungry. We there yet? Yeah. She also reportedly was concerned that the snakes would frighten her horse and like buck back or, you know, react and basically knock Ernie off. Who likes to chew gum. Exactly.

And so she was dividing her attention between basically beating the shit out of these snakes with this sign post and watching her horse and son for the two hours. And my initial reaction was like, I mean, thank God she was a woman. She's used to multitasking. Yeah. I mean, thank God she was a woman. She's used to multitasking. So eventually she kills enough snakes that she can make her way back to her horse and Ernie. And I decided to call the horse Rettiger. They returned home. You decided that?

Yeah. There's no name for the horse. I didn't like that. So Ernie, Kate, Rettiger make their way back to the farm. Duck. No ducks. no ducks. And a neighbor sees Kate, hands all blistered, face all burnt and swollen from the heat and the sun,

and was like, girl, what the fuck have you been up to? And my guess is she recounts what happened, and that neighbor, probably a man, was like, eh, I don't believe you. And so she and the neighbor go back and proceed to collect all of the dead snake bodies bring them back and hang them out to dry which i guess as you do waste not want not i guess you could make some nice shoes and handbags yeah no good good comment there because after they hang

them out to dry on a line they count 140 snakes in snakes in total that she bludgeoned to death and shot. And the neighbor, being the gossip that he or she was, tells a ton of other people. And eventually the media catches wind and she gets interviewed and becomes literally a global sensation. Wow. Like around the world. The news was slow at this time. Well, right. But she was given the title of like world champion

snake killer. Yep. And basically she just gets famous. And the next reasonable question is, Kate, what are you going to do with all those snake bodies? And she says, I'm going to get what I want. And she proceeds to make out of about 50 snake corpses a dress, which I'll show you a picture of. And I mean, she's able to do all of this because again,

she's a skilled taxidermist and probably because of being poor, you know, you don't waste shit. She knew how to cure animal skins and she used 50 to make a flapper style dress um which she wore on several occasions and modeled pictures of and then it was donated to a museum in colorado and this was her party dress she also made shoes and a belt and a neckband she sold some skins for two dollars a piece the rattlers for a dollar and a neck band. She sold some skins for $2 a piece, the rattlers for a dollar, and she collected venom and sent it to scientists in California. Oh, so she's doing the God's work, really.

Yeah. And she proceeds to just kind of be like, I guess I'm going to continue to do this with rattlesnakes because she continued to collect and milk and send venom, I'm guessing, for science. And she got tired of the milking, though, and started just sending them the heads, which really pissed them off

because they're like, we don't want the heads we want just the venom stop it she's like you're ungrateful um so she went on to live her life and lived until she was 75 dying on october 6 1969 so well into you know current day and she was buried with a tombstone identifying her as rattlesnake kate which was what she asked for awesome what a legend just some final things about her uh per her family she uh would like to keep sick goats in her kitchen to keep them warm and nurse them back to health uh she was a nurse again in World War II and supposedly had to jump out of a plane with a parachute and broke her hip.

But that plane crashed and everyone else died. Oh, shit. But it also went on to say, like, no one knows if this is true for sure, because apparently she liked to add to her legend from time to time. She also claimed to have received an offer from the Smithsonian Institute to buy the snake dress for $2,000. And I already mentioned that she continued to raise rattlesnakes and milk them for venom for science. And she, three weeks before her death, donated the dress to the Greeley Museum. Yeah, the Greeley Munins Pult Museum.

And her son, Ernie, later donated more possessions following her death, including her gun. And that, my weird little snake friends, is the story of Rattlesnake Kate. Rattlesnake Kate. You want to see the dress? Well, yes, I do. Okay. So there's a picture of her modeling with their snakes. She looks to be wearing a dress, which was disappointing.

with their snakes. She looks to be wearing a dress, which was disappointing. And then there's another picture of her wearing the snake dress, which is kind of fly. I'm not going to lie. Gross, but fly. Yeah.

I bet that was itchy. It just looks gross. If you scroll down, you can see it in the museum. And it looks like there's like a little like slip under it. But it's just like it looks really gross. Snake skin creeps me out.

Because obviously it's all like dried. Like when they shed their skin, it's not just like leathery. It's like. Well, I suspect because she cured it, it probably wasn't as, like, translucent as just, like, when they molt. But I imagine it feels similar. My dad used to have a pair of snakeskin boots. Oh, yeah? For what reason?

Because he wanted to be a cowboy? I just fancied them, I think, yeah. They were pretty fucking gross. Yeah. If you stroked them one way, it was all right. The other way, it it was like all the scales would like it was horrible yeah one other thing i want to share with you about her is a guy named bucks and bill buckskin bill in nebraska read about her and proceeded to like fall in love with

her from a distance and write poems about her uh and they had like a 40-year correspondence where they never met oh so like i just want to say creeps be creeping through the entire history of time so sorry so what was her her married name it was kate well something slaughterhouse i think she was born kate mckale and then she became kate mckale slaughterhouse and then she got married later like i think at one point her name was kate garner um but i don't have a list of all of her names i think she's most known for or Slaughterback not Slaughterhouse which is the best name considering yeah yeah exactly foretelling her future killing thousands of snakes not thousands hundreds of snakes

millions of snakes millions of snakes were. She is the sole reason why rattlesnakes have gone extinct. I was going to say she killed all the rattlesnakes. Yep. Well, the main thing I'm taking from that is your new nickname is now Rattlesnake Cake. Perfect. And I will hear no different from anyone. And I will hear no different from anyone. I've done nothing to earn such a title, but I think if anything, it will now make me terrifying and legendary in my own right.

Exactly. People are going to wonder how many snakes you killed, and I'm going to say 500 in one sitting. Purely. While sitting. While sitting. And just by looking at them. I have eyes that can shoot daggers. And they're so scared of me because of my notoriety that they die when they see me.

And because you love cats. So they can sense that and they think the cats are coming so yep her name is also very close to cat kate cat it's you know oh i've never called you cat as rattlesnake cat is gonna just confuse people i think but they're so similar that it maybe that Why not? I call chips my weird little snake because he's very long and a snaky boy. Oh, my God. It's a snack. It's a snack. I'm a snake. It's not.

I should probably cite my sources. Colorado Encyclopedia dot org. Good old Wikipedia. K.L.A.Q. dot com. Greeley Museums dot com. Greeley History klaq.com, greelymuseums.com, greelyhistory.org, and treehugger.com, which is where I got all my facts about rattlesnakes. Oh, sounds like a cracking website to me. All the orgs.

Yep. I believe it's pronounced Wackapedia, though. Oh, yeah, Wackapedia. Yes, very official. Wackapedia. Yes. Very official. There we have it. Thank you for that fascinating tale of rattlesnake. It's hard to say, actually.

A bit of a tongue twister. Rattlesnake Kate. Rattlesnake Kate. Rattlesnake Kate. Rattlesnake Kate. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane. Rattlesnake Kate. Rattlesnake. Skate. Rattlesnake. Kate. The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plane. Rattlesnake. Kate.

Rattlesnack. Rattlesnack. Rattlesnackle cattle. I can't do this coffee. Would you like to hear an Am I the Arsehole? You know I would, baby. Am I the arsehole? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Okay. Prepare yourself for this shit show. I'm good. Am I the arsehole for hitting my girlfriend when she told me that she's glad my sister died yep whoa even that title i had a range of reactions and emotions obviously trigger warning abuse yeah um okay so i 23 female remember that girlfriend, 28 female, have been together for around six to seven years. I'm just doing the math in my head and something seems odd.

Let's work that out quickly. Six to seven years, you say? So, possibly 15, 16 years old when they started dating and this person was 21, 22? Yeah. Ew. Okay. A little bit groomy, but just put that back in your mind. Yeah. Okay. Our relationship is very strong and we are very close to each other. We tell each other basically everything.

We tell each other basically everything. Now, my sister passed away on the 23rd of December. Me and my sister were also very close and we would constantly be hanging out and spending time together. But I would also spend time with my girlfriend the same amount of time for each of them. Okay. Weird, but okay. When she died, I couldn't do anything. I was super depressed and only laid in bed. When she died, I couldn't do anything. I was super depressed and only laid in bed. I took like two weeks off work and didn't really take any time to spend with my girlfriend, which I regret deeply.

My girlfriend called me lazy almost every day, making me even more unmotivated and depressed. When I finally started getting out of bed and doing things like work and doing chores etc my girlfriend still said that that wasn't enough. Then out of nowhere she said I'm glad she my sister died you never spend any time with me only her and now you don't have an excuse not to spend time with me. I don't know what pushed her to say that it was completely unrelated to what we were talking about before so I slapped her and started yelling at her. She started crying and screaming and telling me that I was a terrible person for abusing her and I do feel terrible because I should never have hit her but what she said just made me so angry and I couldn't stop myself. She told me to get out of the house and go to my

parents house even though I literally own the house we both live in and I pay the bills on it and she doesn't. But I did leave and I'm staying with my mum now. It hurts to be here because the room I'm staying in is next door to my sister's old room and I'm just reminded of her whenever I leave my room. My mum and dad said that I shouldn't have hit her but that it was reasonable for me to get upset over what she said. Her parents and her sister have all been texting me on Facebook and Instagram all day. I've blocked them, but they just use other accounts or they tell me, sorry, or tell their other friends and family to message me. It's really stressing me out. And she made a Facebook post about me being an abuser and how I beat her up.

Am I the asshole for hitting her? I don't know what to do in this situation now. I don't know if this means that we're broken up or what. Opinions, please. Oofed. As someone who, like, I think is of the opinion that generally like physical violence is never the answer. In my line of work, I often have to talk about when things escalate and like what that means and kind of how it rises to the level and all of that. And I would say that this scenario, while not great, it's actually kind of bad. I'm not hearing a domestic abuse dynamic. I'm hearing someone who is experiencing a lot of grief and loss and a partner who is not supportive and maybe some provocation there. And the reaction was due to conflict and probably just made in really poor judgment and stuff.

And so I don't love, granted, I don't know anything else about the relationship. This other person's side, I don't love that this, this person is being characterized as an abuser. Like there's a difference between being an abuser versus like, like engaging in abusive behavior, right?

Yeah. You know, on one occasion that we know about anyway. And I'm glad that her parents are saying, like, you know, it was wrong of you to hit her. But, like, that kind of really extreme fight in words a little bit. Like, that's severe. That's really bad what she said to her. And I think everything leading up to that too, calling her lazy, really being unsupportive of her, the fact that she had this big loss in her life. And I think clearly having some

insecurities and jealousy about that relationship, which probably was there before um and the fact that this person apparently also owns the home and pays all the bills and yet is being called lazy when she needed some time to grieve however that looked uh suggest suggested me a dynamic where uh perhaps there is some the abusive person is maybe not the person who actually is slapped is what I'm wondering yeah seems like the other person is mentally abusing

this poor person I think yeah I don't think she's an abuser I don't think hitting people is right but i can see why she did because that was fucking out of order to say um really hurtful really hurtful when one she's grieving it's clearly quite recent and as you say like cool you know being totally unsupportive while this person's grieving.

Mm-hmm. It just seems like a really fucking unhealthy dynamic all round, especially considering the ages they got together as well. Yep. It doesn't sound like a healthy relationship whatsoever. Also, there's no coming back from this, I don't think. Also, there's no coming back from this, I don't think. It's interesting that the person who wrote it seems to also maybe be in consideration of trying to make it better and work it out. Just because I don't know if we're broken up and I, you know, I don't know what to do, which is concerning to me as well, that they would be like, I would take it all back and be with this person still, despite the fact that this person said that.

Yeah, like, she can never take back the fact that she said she's glad your sister died. Like, that's going to hang around the relationship forever the fact that you slapped her is also happened now yeah i don't i i i don't think you're an arsehole because i think i probably would have slapped my girlfriend if they'd said that as well to be honest with you it's understandable doesn't mean it's right but it it's understandable. I would say, though, I will have to say that this person, like, not knowing enough about the other person, them making that comment, who knows what they were going through. It could have been also made out of whatever they were experiencing or perceiving in a way that's like, because we all say stuff we don't mean to, right? Like, we do that. too, right? Like we do that. And of course, it could have been conflict stirring and brewing and building. And so I will say like the information we have right now that if we're going to give this person kind of a, not a pass, but kind of say it's understandable that you slapped her, then we have to maybe say, if we heard this person said the story, like it's not

good, right, great that you said that that but we say things we don't mean and like you probably you have some you have to take some accountability there but instead this person's getting her family and friends to basically kind of align with her perspective that she was been abused posting things on facebook like really kind of also character assassination which i think is indicative of of trying to control the narrative. Yeah, yeah. Controlling the narrative, trying to paint themselves as the victim, you know, in the relationship, which is, I think, something we can see sometimes in coercively controlling dynamics. And when there's power imbalances and stuff, which is kind of the feelings and vibes I'm getting here, too.

So it's unfortunate really good comment is so let me get this straight you were 16 17 and she was 22 23 when you started dating and she berated you and insulted you for being depressed when your sister with whom you were extremely close to died and you're the sole breadwinner and play all the bills but she felt entitled to making you leave the home she's told you that she's happy someone you cared and loved died because she thinks you could only spend time with her there's definitely an abuser here and it is not you reactive abuse is what this is um that's when you're abused to the point that you react like this to your abuser you need to kick her out and go no contact completely you've been groomed and she's a parasite i can't say disagree

based on the information we have all of those things are really good points that i mean reactive if we want to call it that or whatever but I think just like people get pushed to their limits even when they're generally passive people who wouldn't ever do anything like that I mean it happens in parenting when you're kind of at your wits end with your kid and people sometimes you know discipline their kids in anger because of that and like those circumstances where it's like well it's not great but like also like it happens so but I agree when you line

it all up like that those are some really concerning dynamics yeah I'd get the fuck out if I were you mate get her the fuck out mmhmm oh she's posted a comment she's dumped a comment. She's dumped her.

Oh, good. Yeah. She gave her 24 hours to pack her things. Get out. Cool. I'm glad. Yeah, I think not the asshole or if we're going to be fair, everyone sucks here because like that was a really bad reaction that probably you wouldn't have done even if in a different circumstance where you weren't pushed. Yeah.

done even if in a different circumstance where you weren't pushed um yeah so you know we'll have to call it call it like it is to be fair but also if anything you know i would also be willing to say you're not you're not an asshole so yeah i'm saying not the asshole i would have done the same i don't care who knows it. There are just certain things I think where it's just fucked up to say, you know? I mean, there's a reason why like there's something called fighting words, provocation. You can,

you can provoke people and with your words and that can be, you can be held accountable for that stuff. So. Exactly. She is the asshole. So, yep. Exactly. She is the asshole.

On that note. Fast today. Yeah, it did go fast, didn't it? I thought I was like rapid talking about my story too. Rattlesnake. Rattlesnake. Done. Bing.

Yeah, it was really good. I enjoyed that. Me too. I'm going to call you Rattlesnake Kate. Rattlesnake Kate. Done. Bing. Yeah, it was really good. I enjoyed that. Me too. I'm going to call you Rattlesnake Kate. I'm going to even change it on my phone. Well, then pick a good woman for you to talk about next because that may well end up being your nickname. Brilliant. Well, if anyone else has got a story that they'd like us to cover or a dilemma and want to know if they're the arsehole or anything really, yeah, just email us at talkshit. No, it's not. Yeah, it is. Talkshit to us at gmail.com or send us a DM on Twitter, Insta.

Literally anything. or send us a DM on Twitter, Insta, literally anything, which is T-S-Y-B pod. Get in touch, give us a follow, give us a like, a rating, a review, but make sure it's a good one, please. Because it does genuinely help spread the word and get people listening to the pod. So that would be much appreciated. And we do really like the fact that you listen. Okay, that's my ramble over. And I'll just add, and you said it particularly if it's good, but frankly, like, why wouldn't it be good? We're awesome. This is an awesome podcast. And I don't know why you wouldn't it be good we're awesome yeah this is an awesome podcast and i don't know why you wouldn't say good things about us to us and about us yes thank you so facts facts no cap say less say less that's good to see you and you over and out till next week salutations and goodbye yes i don't know what i was doing there my bad we just say you