Counting croc

You know, you just don’t come across stories like this one every day. And thank God for that—both for animal welfare and so we don’t get so used to really weird stuff that we fail to enjoy it properly.

It starts out like this:

A crocodile and an accountant get on a bus…

No, really—it seems that there’s this Russian circus, which was travelling…somewhere in Northern Russia last week. And evidently (for possibly some cost-saving reasons, or I don't know, maybe some Russian circus tradition), at least one “performing” crocodile, named Fedya, and one accountant, unnamed, were in a bus. The same bus. And the accountant, at least, was not wearing her seatbelt.

So, when the bus hit a pothole, well, as the Moscow Times reported, “a dangerous reptile sustained injuries after being squashed by a portly circus accountant”.

(And, seriously—most journalists have been waiting their entire careers to have a chance to use that line.)

It seems that Fedya, who is 6’5”, with green eyes and a big, crowd-pleasing smile, sustained an “accidental full body slam” from the accountant, who’s reported as weighing 120 kg, no other physical description. (And yes, I made that up about the eyes and smile; but the crocodile is reported at 2m in length.)

According to the UPI report, “The animal vomited for several hours after it was crushed by a 264-pound accountant.” Well—as you do.

Fedya was examined by a veterinarian and excused from performance duty for a few days after his traumatic assault. The accountant—oh, hell, I’ll call her Masha—suffered cuts and bruises, and was given an official Russian circus ticking off for not wearing her seatbelt.

Now I have some questions. You knew I would.

Like: what’s up with the crocodile (by all accounts “a dangerous reptile”) being on a bus with Masha? Was the dangerous reptile bus full? Was his transport cage in the shop? And where was Fedya’s human performer partner? And why wasn’t he (Fedya) wearing a seatbelt?

By the way—what the hell does a “performing crocodile” actually do? In a circus, I mean.

And where, exactly, do you put a 6’5” crocodile on a bus? I’m thinking that even if you had those flat-bed seats like on trans-oceanic flights, a crocodile would kind of flop over the edges. Plus, you’d never get him to put his tray-table back into the upright position.

Also—it seems to me that if I were that bus driver, and I knew there was a 2-meter-long crocodile unsecured somewhere in the bus behind me, I’d have a really, really hard time concentrating on the road. So that whole bus-meets-pothole situation was just an accident waiting to happen.

Finally—how do they know that Masha weighs 120 kg? If they took that from her driver’s license, she lied. And Fedya probably lied about his length, too.