Man, work sucked tonight. I wait tables and the money can be okay sometimes, but tonight SUCKED. It was slow as hell tonight, and I only ended up making about $20. And then my last table ended up getting seated at around 8:30. They then ordered nothing but tap water and sandwiches, and THEY WOULD NOT LEAVE. Three hours later and their total tab is about $20. Which pisses me off because I know that I'm hanging around for three hours pouring free water for them, and that I'm only gonna end up getting tipped about three or four dollars.

So I'm pretty mad, when I go down to the garage to pick up some supplies. To my surprise, I see a cute little water snake. So I grab a to-go cup, throw the snake in it, and take it home. Work may have sucked, but at least I got a free pet to love and care for. And besides, I had to rescue the snake. You can't have water snakes hanging around in the garage of a restaurant. Either it's gonna get run over, or someone is gonna think it's a cottonmouth and kill it.

So anyway, now that I have the snake, how do I care for it? I had a pet water snake before, but that was like 20 years ago and I was only about 5 years old. What do I feed my snake? Do I feed it fish? I remember that I used to feed my old water snake minnows and guppies, but I was wondering if that's the ideal food. What to feed it? Frogs? Fish? Lizards? Mice? All of the above?

Also, how should I house it? It's a water snake, so it obviously likes water. On the other hand, I've heard of some people's pet water snakes getting sick because they sit around in a water dish all day. Should I give it enough water to soak in? Does it need to be in water, or do I just have to keep the humidity high? Also, what kind of temperatures do these guys like, and does it need the ultraviolet lights? I read that these snakes are nocturnal, so that makes me think that they wouldn't need the ultraviolet. But on the other hand, I've seen many water snakes hanging around during daytime.

Oh, and BTW, in case it helps, I think it's a Nerodia fasciata.

Anyway, how do I take care of this little bastard? What do I need to do to make sure that it's a happy water snake?

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