So, yesterday was "tell us about your work" day in my third grade daughters class. I was the highlight of the day as the kids were waiting in anticipation of seeing some snakes. And snakes they did see. Anyhow I bring three Boas for the kids to see including my 9 year old daughters female Colombian Boa. The highlight for them was the big yellow Boa I brought. A female Albino. I explained that we build cages for Reptiles. We raise rats to feed the snakes. And yes we "make" Boas as well.







One little side note; See the poster on the cabinet behind me. "In God we trust". Dangerous message there huh?







"Make Boas"? one boy asked. Yes we make them. All you need is a great habitat for your Boas. I have a pretty good line on some great cages designed by some Boa Whacko. Then I put a boy and a girl Boa in the cage, they breed and badda boom badda bang, we "make" Boas! "Oh," he said with a sigh. There wasn't one stinking question about the cages! Imagine that. There I was all ready to babble about the cages we make and nothing. There was one question about the rats; "Did you bring any rats?" "No," I didn't bring any rats although I think there may have been a great deal of interest in them as well. Then came the snake questions... Lots of snake questions and a number of snake tales that were of course, completely impossible. One kid told me his Mom had seen a "Gardener" snake with a head as big as her hand. Another told me his brother had found a Rattlesnake here in Minnesota. Not impossible but highly improbable. The questions were the real gems. I had questions for them and they had questions for me.







Another quick mention here; See that red and white thing hanging at the top right of the two adjoining pictures? That's the "Stars and Stripes!" Some people don't care for it much. I love it! I guess we are fully indoctrinating our kids with all kinds of crazy ideas. Life. Liberty. Freedom of speech. All that sort of stuff hundreds of thousands have fought for and too many have shed blood to preserve for unworthy folks like me. I have heard a recording of Red Skelton reading this piece many many times and it never fails to bring a tear to my unworthy eye every single time I hear it. Click here to read the entire text:







But I wander a bit. Back to the "job" talk.



I asked the kids, "Who thinks that snakes like this Boa Constrictor lay eggs?" We'll most every hand but two shot up. One of the defectors was my daughter and a little boy who declined raise their hands. What was interesting about this was about 15 hands shot up and then another 5 or 6 hands went up in the next five seconds or so after looking around. Many were either unsure and looking for confirmation or I think more likely, they felt the peer pressure to raise their hands in agreement with the masses. So only two didn't believe in those yucky eggs. Then I asked, "How many think Boas give birth to live young"? Two hands went up, no wait three, four, eight, twelve... before you know it about 18 hands were up! Sixteen of these hands had just been up saying they laid eggs! LOL! I am not sure if it again was the peer pressure or some noticed that Christina, my daughter and resident snake expert, had raised her hand saying they give live birth. Of course they give live birth right? Only dumb snakes lay eggs. Smart snakes give live birth just like people do silly.







Another highlight question was this; I told the kids we have lots of Boas. "How many Boas do you think live in Christina's bedroom with her?" I asked. The first guess was 5, then 7 then 10 and much more quickly than I expected, "none?" Nice! Of course none. I was going to have a good time dragging that one out a bit but alas, the answer was found out pretty quickly.







Christina is and was very shy throughout all of this. I did my best to just chat with the kids without completely loosing control of the little munchkins or causing her too much reason to be embarrassed by her bald big Boa handling Daddy. I even shaved the old melon for a fresh clean look. I didn't want the scare the children at all.







My favorite part of the show was after it was all over and we were in the car heading home. My wife, Cindy, who took the pictures, said while all the kids had gathered around to watch the big Albino on the floor to see how fast it would crawl, overheard a really funny line that should probably be written up for Readers Digest. Jacob, one of Christina's classmates, was toward the back of the crowd. My wife was standing near him taking pictures when she heard him say a memorable quote. He had a forlorn look in his eye and a sigh in his voice when she overheard him say, "My Mom doesn't have a cool job like that". What a hoot!




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