I just mentioned in “Snakes Alive” that at one time I had in my possession a couple of pet snakes which I purchased at a party. In all fairness, I believe that my older sister contributed to the purchase at the time. What I was throwing into the pot was my baby sitting money, she her earnings as a waitress at a local restaurant.
Neither one of us had the slightest clue as to how one took care of snakes, but we thought they would make a cool pet. The guy who sold us the outfit was a Vietnam veteran who was getting ready to move, and live snakes was proving too big an encumbrance to that activity. He had already found a home for his large Burmese python. He blithely told us it was easy to take care of snakes, informed us that you just fed them live mice. Really? We were fascinated. Where do you get the mice? Oh you can raise them yourselves or just buy them at the pet store. At the pet store! How amazing.
Neither one of us thought about the fact that we lived in a town that not only had no pet store, it also had no doctor, dentist, movie theatre, fast food, or any place to buy shoes or clothing. We also didn’t really have a steady income sufficient for buying mice from the pet stores down in the Big City where our parents worked.
No matter, we loaded up both cages and the snakes and toted them home, much to the dismay and astonishment of my mother. I have to give my parents credit though. We had pet cats that got food bought for them, ditto the dog. My folks added the snakes to the list of pets and willingly purchased live mice (and later hamsters) from the pet store down in the Big City. Interestinly enough, when you bought mice as snake food rather than pets, they were quite a bit cheaper. Forever after that our friends were terrified by the idea of coming to visit us as we had Snakes! in our living room.
Horace was the boa constrictor. He looked exactly like the snake in the photo on that link. Too bad the poster didn’t identify the variety of boa. The other snake we brought home that night was named Herman, whom we lated learned through the auspices of a herpetologist was actually a Hermanetta, was a bull snake. They lived in a large terrarium situated right next to the stairs in our living room. In the winter they were provided with a heating pad under one end of their enclosure. They used to curl up on the rock that was right over that pad, and just bask in the warmth.
Horace absolutely loved to hang around my neck. I believe he liked the warmth. He would find a button on my blouse and wrap his tail around it. That acted like an anchor for him. It was really very cool to feel the muscles flexing in his sides when he finally got warm and active enough to cantilever off my shoulder towards the person sitting next to me, tongue flicking experimentally as he tasted the air and headed towards that infra-red source.
He truly was a very silky and smooth snake, unlike Herman, whose scales were much larger and had ridges on them. Herman was also much less mellow than Horace. People used to ask me if I wasn’t afraid of the snake hanging around my neck. I would laugh at them, explain sincerely that they really weren’t big enough to kill me.
I was wearing Herman around my neck one day when our dog bounced into the living room unexpectedly. Herman wound himself tightly around my neck in a defensive position, and proceeded to inhale deeply and hold his breath in an attempt to look as large and threatening to the dog as possible. The dog was just happy to be inside with his people, and was completely oblivious to the snake. I started to feel lightheaded because the constriction had seriously cut off the blood supply to my brain. Herman was not going to unwind willingly, he was safe where he was, and it took three of us pulling on him to finally get him to release his grip. After that, I wore Herman as a bracelet rather than a necklace.
Horace never acted like that, though. One day, because he was so calm and would ride around my neck just like a beautiful living scarf, I decided to wear him to school. This was partially motivated by the fact that the children of my parents’ friends, who were our friends except when at school when the pressures of society made them collaborators with our tormentors, had been telling people that we had Snakes! in our living room and nobody believed it. I had been taking a lot of bullshit about this subject, and I decided that I was going to show them that we did indeed have snakes at our house. I also naively believed that if I could introduce people to this lovely, mellow, soft, intelligent snake they would lose their fear and loathing of snakes. Silly me.
One fine late-winter morning I draped Horace around my neck, put on my coat and boarded the bus to school. I did not discuss this harebrained plan with my parents, knowing full well that they would not approve. My siblings were too busy getting their lunches together to notice my choice of attire, and my folks were already long gone on their commute to the Big City where they both had jobs, chiefly so that they could feed us and the zoological collection.
It was a pretty cool morning, so it took Horace a long time to wake up. It wasn’t until third period, during chemistry class, that he finally started feeling like he might want to explore his environment. There were about 14 of us in this science class.
Please bear in mind that this was an extremely small school. Our science teacher was notable for his habit of being “sick” on days when there was fresh powder on the ski slopes, which were only about 5 miles from town. I am still unsure of how he got the job of teaching us science, but I think it was because he was a biology major. Unfortunately, this also made him responsible for general science, chemistry, and physics as well, none of which he had the slightest clue about. He was really too lazy to try to keep ahead of us in the textbook too. So that particular day we were having a study hall rather than a chemistry lesson. From my advanced perspective I believe he may have been nursing a hangover that day.
Anyway, my partner at my table for chemistry class was a young man who didn’t usually tease me too much. He was innocently studying when Horace finally extended himself across space to his shoulder. The kids who sat behind me had already noticed the snake stretching out towards Sam, and a certain amount of buzz was already going through the classroom. They were gasping and giggling and waiting (along with me) to see what was going to happen. Sam remained oblivious until Horace glided gently onto his shoulder and breathed out heavily.
I was used to this sibilant exhalation, but Sam was not. He turned his head to see what the noise was just in time for Horace to flick his tongue out to taste this new human he was meeting. As soon as he realized what he was looking at, Sam’s eyes popped, he threw himself away from me and Horace out of his chair towards the wall, and let out a yell that caused our teacher to flinch and knock both his coffee cup and the book he was sleeping at on the floor. I really wish I had a picture of it all, really.
I burst out laughing and pulled Horace back towards me as Sam batted at him. “Don’t hurt him! He is just curious!” I told Sam as I protected the snake’s head from his waving arms.
Once the excitement had died down, and people had stopped being nervous and afraid, everybody in class was fascinated. That is, everybody but our teacher, who had an as-yet-undisclosed extreme fear of snakes. He was backed up into the corner of the classroom, a full 15 feet from the snake, gasping, and pointing, and white as the snow he loved to ski on. “Get that snake out of here!” was the only thing he could manage to say. After a moment of heavy breathing he pulled himself together and with the full power of his instructoral authority shouted, “Go to the principal’s office!”
Poor Mr. B. As principal of our little world, he rarely had to deal with anything more distressing than scheduling a subsitute for our science teacher. I was the quintessential Good Girl, never in trouble, always getting straight A’s. He really didn’t know what to do with me. There wasn’t a section in the dress code prohibiting young girls from wearing their boa constrictors as scarves. He was pretty freaked out by the snake too, but eventually the problem was solved by sending me home from school because I had disrupted classes. I was banned for the rest of the day with instructions to never do such a thing ever again.
Poor man, since there was no one else available, he was the one one who had to drive me and Horace home, nervously watching the snake to make sure it wasn’t going to attack him. Horace was fully warm by that time, cantilevering himself merrily off into space towards every surface of the vehicle, tasting tasting tasting.
I love snakes.
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