ph33r my photoshop skillsNot that long ago, the Lon­don Time Out ran a fea­ture on pirates in Lon­don to cel­e­brate the release of Pirates of the Caribbean 2. Way to be hip, Time Out. Every­one who’s any­one knows that the actu­al most impor­tant movie this year is Snakes on Plane — or as some like to call it “Moth­er­fuck­ing snakes on a moth­er­fuck­ing plane”. So, in trib­ute to this movie that opens on Thurs­day, the Welling­ton­ista is proud to present this very spe­cial activ­i­ty guide to recre­at­ing snakes on a plane in Welling­ton:

Snakes
An obvi­ous place to start look­ing for snakes would be the Welling­ton Zoo. But a look at their FAQ turns up this tid­bit:
“Laws set by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Forests (MAF) and the Depart­ment of Con­ser­va­tion (DOC) state that snakes can­not be import­ed in to New Zealand.”

Well that’s all very good and well, MAF, but what about the snakes that make it over here on the planes? Where are they going to go huh?

The Welling­ton zoo does have a rep­tile col­lec­tion, so maybe you could get your cold-blood­ed fix there, since you’re not going to be see­ing the tuatara all that often any­more oth­er­wise.

So since there are no real snakes avail­able in New Zealand (appar­ent­ly!), a trip to the Met Shop on Swan Lane off Cuba St might be in order. Sure­ly there will be toy snakes to be found here. Oth­er­wise a trip to any dairy or super­mar­ket should turn up some sour snakes — and also some jet planes.

Planes

Now that you have your snakes, it’s time to go and find a plane. You have three options here. The first is the most log­i­cal — you head to the air­port. Park at the end of the run­way out by Moa Point, climb onto your car bon­net ala Wayne’s World, and wait for a plane to come in. Hold up your snake in front of your eyes, and there you have it. Snakes on a Plane. It lives up to the hype, right?

Or head to a toy shop, or per­haps a mod­el store and buy your­self a lit­tle plane. Put your snake on the plane. You are now a part of a cul­tur­al phe­nom­e­non.

Final­ly, if all else fails, get fish cakes with snake beans take­out from Chow and head out of town to the Horowhen­ua Plains. Aren’t you pun­ny?