Humor & Life Quote by W. C. Fields

Fields turns cowardice into a logistics problem, and that’s the gag’s quiet genius. The line is built like a deadpan confession from a man who has optimized his own panic: he keeps “a supply of stimulant” (booze, almost certainly) for emergencies, then casually admits he also keeps the emergency itself on standby. The “snake” is less a reptile than a portable excuse - a prop that authorizes his preferred solution. He’s not reacting to danger; he’s curating it.

The specific intent is to reframe vice as preparedness. Alcohol isn’t indulgence, it’s equipment. The joke lands because it mimics the language of responsible adults - supplies, contingencies, being “handy” - while smuggling in a childish, self-serving logic. Fields’ persona often ran on this kind of inverted respectability: the respectable tone of a man making profoundly unserious choices, then daring you to call him on it.

Subtext: the world is irritating, fear is useful, and self-medication is easier when you can pretend it’s rational. By “also keep[ing]” the snake, he admits the con at the heart of many habits: we manufacture stressors to justify our coping mechanisms, then blame the stressor. It’s a one-line portrait of addiction-as-alibi, told with a wink instead of a lecture.

Context matters. Fields worked in an era of Prohibition-era moralizing and stage-born mischief, where the drunk wasn’t just a cautionary tale but a folk antihero. His humor doesn’t ask for sympathy; it asks you to recognize the scam - and enjoy how elegantly he runs it.