PET LOVERS SHARING THE EXPERIENCE

Pet lovers are the best.

They have their pride and joy and love giving it their attention.

Naturally they want to share what makes them so happy, which is why they’re the best.

So go ahead and pet their dog, their cat. Whistle with their bird. Tickle their turtle.

In this case it started with, “Do you want to see me feed my snake?”

Before I got married I dated a snake girl for a while, long enough to meet her snakes.

The power went out in her house and she brought them along one night.

 

“Do you mind? I don’t want them to get cold,” she said.

 

She had a big bag and a little bag.

How do you keep a snake in a bag when you’re so proud of them?

 

“Would you like to meet my little buddy?” she said.

 

She opened the smaller bag and pulled out a corn snake.

The Spruce Pets thinks highly of them.

 

Taking its name from the corn granaries, which attracted mice and then mouse predators, the corn snake makes an excellent pet snake.

It is generally docile, relatively easy to care for, and does not get very large; it’s a great choice, especially for beginner snake owners. 

 

My opinion of snakes, any snake, is they first want to bite you in the face then wrap around your neck.

I could be wrong. That’s not what an excellent pet would do.

She draped her snake over her shoulders. I gave it a pet to show I wasn’t some chicken-shit around snakes.

 

“I think she likes you. I’ll let you two get to know each other before I bring her big brother out.”

 

The gunny sack flexed. It was a short date with that pet loving lady.

 

“Feed My Snake?”

Years later there was a small class reunion/party at my wife’s friend’s place in Santa Monica.

She and her husband knew each other in high school and got married later in life.

He was an excitable guy with strong feelings about music: digital music kills your soul.

I thought about that while listening to four hours of The Dog Night on his reel to reel.

Some of the classmates looked like they’d already listened to too many CDs.

 

About an hour in the snake talk started.

No, I didn’t want to see a snake strike an animal and swallow it.

No, you don’t have to bring it out, I like snakes in a cage better than on the loose.

The snake cage was in an upstairs bedroom, the snake room.

Snakey was moving around, which means what? It’s hungry?

Thanks man, looks like a healthy snake. Let’s go back downstairs.

My marriage goal for the evening was set: be friendly enough so my wife’s high school pals won’t think she married a jerk.

No pressure. Who hadn’t been there and done that.

In other words, don’t embarrass her with any of my poor taste jokes like the hillbilly girl who wanted to borrow her dad’s car, or the family duck.

My personal goal was to show a guy from North Bend could navigate the social mores of these SoCal sophisticates.

 

The Snake Challenge For Pet Lovers

My feelings about snakes are different when I have a machete in my hand.

It’s more of a ‘come at me snake’ feeling.

I don’t hate snakes, they just creep me out with all of the crawling and hanging and swallowing large animals whole.

And they’ve got that reputation from the Garden of Eden.

One thing led to another that night, snake came out of the cage, and we met each other.

 

They took the top off the cage so Nume could slither out. He took a lap and I was sitting right in the home stretch.

I kept thinking, trying to remember, ‘Do snakes smell fear? No, that’s dogs. Can this snake tell if I’m terrified?’

I was spooked, but standing my ground. Okay, sitting my ground.

Nume the snake popped it’s head above the far arm of the couch and came for me. It took me out of my comfort zone.

“He’s really friendly,” the owner said. “He likes you. I can tell if he doesn’t like someone.”

I didn’t ask how since it wasn’t striking me in the face. I kept a forearm ready to block, just in case. It didn’t seem like enough.

 

What I noticed in the room was the attention paid to the snake. Everyone moved away.

As a worldly man of small town Oregon I automatically understood the scene: Its played out before with the snake on the loose.

The SoCal gang was waiting for a reaction.

In spite of the distractions I sat firm.

The next day we even brought our young kids over to meet the snake.

That was the most fearless moment of all, a snake meeting a kid it could swallow in one gulp.

Neither of them blinked.

We all escaped with a new appreciation of what gives dad the heebeejeebeeies.

 

Not long after that the snake escaped on its own and they found it in the headboard of their bed.

Not long after that the snake found a new home.

They sold it to a pet store where a movie producer bought it for the silver screen, so the next time you see a snake in a movie look for Nume in the credits.

I like happy endings.