Lucky Australia Man Finds Free Snake In Bag Of Aldi Lettuce

When I'm having a bad day, I like to watch this 20-second clip of a little snake named Linguine going to jail. I'm so infatuated with Linguine that, for a split second, I considered adopting a tiny pet snake of my very own. Unfortunately, not all snakes are as charismatic as Linguine. A man in Sydney, Australia, learned that the hard way when he found a venomous snake in his bag of Aldi lettuce.

The Guardian reports that Sydney resident Alexander White found a "small venomous snake" measuring about eight inches long in his bag of produce upon returning home from the grocery store. "It was moving around and flicking its little tongue out," White told The Guardian. "It was actually its tongue which let me know it wasn't a giant worm. I would have been more comfortable with a worm, to be honest."

White called Wires, a local wildlife rescue organization, to collect the snake. Wildlife experts then identified the little guy as a pale-headed snake, or Hoplocephalus bitorquatus. While pale-headed snakes are notably shy, the Australian Museum notes that their venom can "produce some unpleasant symptoms, including severe headache, blurred vision, localized pain, and abnormal bleeding."

The wildlife organization worked with Aldi to trace the lettuce—and the snake—back to the city of Toowoomba in southern Queensland, Australia. Aldi told The Guardian that it "worked with the customer and the team at Wires to identify the snake's natural habitat, which is certainly not an Aldi store." And what became of the lettuce, you ask? "I have eaten the lettuce," White said. "I washed it thoroughly."