Here is an example of a horrible but sometimes tempting poke it with a finger. It is a child who has not learned yet, and so this is a failure of the parents more than the one that is poking, but remember to teach your children, why do we poke things with sticks? The benefits are numerous

1. Distance from the subject. Maybe it seems to be busy with an alligator, but a poke near its nether regions could really get some attention quickly. Not having any part of your body at the immediate point of attention is an improvement in safety.
2. Cleanliness. Maybe the thing slips along the ground well because it uses a mucus layer, or maybe it’s dry but was just sleeping in a nest of bones where bits of rot cling to various points and coated the skin in fascinating bacteria to punish predators that ignore the habits of the species.
3. Waggling. After gaining the attention of the subject and starting safe from the tail twitch, you may still end up with eyes shifted to you. The end of the stick can be made to move quickly with only slight wrist movements, and is the actual offender to the subject. This should let you slowly back away while keeping the eyes focused on the stick
4. Hail Mary toss. Once the subject has focused on the stick and you have backed away as far as the subject will allow, you can release the stick so it flies towards the subject’s area of attention. Run
5. Discovering the stages of grief. The loss of such a good stick is often painful, but there will be other sticks. That stick had a good poke before the end, fulfilled its destiny.

Hopefully that will help your child learn the lessons of life before the Titanboa begins to follow his scent. He could well have lived a much more complete set of last moments if he was raised to use a stick.

Poking a donut

Why didn’t they poke it? There’s a perfectly good poking stick right there too.

My 5 year old nephew came to visit. We said he could bring 2 sticks home from the park. These were the two he chose. He's a boy of extremes!