"some things'll scare you so bad, you hurt yourself" --Molly Ivins

A wise and funny story--a favorite of mine from Molly Ivins (via Mother Jones)––whom I've never stopped missing--a story that I'm posting, below, in part to piggyback on an article OCA posted from historian Timothy Snyder on terrorism, with this insight:

"I won’t claim to know what Hamas expects from Israel, nor what Israel should do. That would be a matter for people with the languages and expertise…

My point is that it is always worth asking, in such situations, whether you are following the terrorist’s script.
If what you want to do is what your enemy wants you to do, someone is mistaken. It might be your enemy. But it also might be you."

--From Snyder's article "Terror and counter-terror: A reflection on Hamas and Israel", October 10, 2023

BELOW—This is the story Molly Ivins told, which she heard from her friend  Johnny Faulk. Johnny Faulk, she says . . .

“…used to tell a story about when he was a Texas Ranger, a captain in fact. He was seven at the time.
His friend Boots Cooper, who was six, was sheriff, and the two of them used to do a lot of heavy law enforcement out behind the Faulk place in south Austin.
One day Johnny's mama, having two such fine officers on the place, asked them to go down to the hen house and rout out the chicken snake that had been doing some damage there.

Johnny and Boots loped down to the hen house on their trusty brooms (which they tethered outside) and commenced to search for the snake. They went all through the nests on the bottom shelf of the hen house and couldn't find it, so the both of them stood on tippy-toes to look on the top shelf.

I myself have never been nose-to-nose with a chicken snake, but I always took Johnny's word for it that it will just scare the living daylights out of you (which this one did.)
Scared those boys so bad that they both tried to exit the hen house at the same time, doing considerable damage to both themselves and the door.

Johnny's mama, Miz Faulk, was a kindly lady, but watching all this, it struck her funny. She was still laughin' when the captain and the sheriff trailed back up to the front porch.

"Boys, boys, " said Miz Faulk, "what is wrong with you? You know perfectly well a chicken snake cannot hurt you."

That's when Boots Cooper made his semi-immortal observation.
"Yes ma'am," he said, "but there's some things'll scare you so bad, you hurt yourself."

——

[end Molly Ivins story]