Never bring a snake to a gunfight, I think the saying goes. This driver did not bring one with him, actually, but he improvised.

Police spotted the man swerving on Saturday night as he was driving near the city of Darwin (which is a little ironic). They stopped him and administered a breath test, which he failed with flying colors. At that point, say police, he ran out onto the road and picked up a live snake.

Now that’s quick thinking. For some reason it makes me think of those Mentos commercials—you know, where the person is a complete loser but then has one Mento(s) and suddenly wins the Nobel Prize in physics? Okay, maybe they’ve moved on from that theme.

Anyway, we left our hero on the road outside Darwin, having just run from police and picked up a snake. According to a police spokesperson, “The driver allegedly armed himself with a live snake, pointed the head of the reptile at [the officers] and threatened them.” The officers told him to “Drop the snake”—I considered using an exclamation point there but you know they were just rolling their eyes at him—but he refused and “ran into bushland still carrying it.”

The article did not say whether the snake was poisonous. Reuters helpfully posted a snake photo — they all look poisonous to me but this is probably just a file photo anyway. Poisonous or not, the snake did not help the driver intimidate or evade police, as he will be appearing shortly in the local Magistrates Court on a drunken-driving charge.