I finished mowing the grass tonight and took a shower. I was spraying the tub with one of those "after-shower" cleaners when the phone rang. I grabbed a towel and headed into the bedroom. My boss was calling, and he had an offer for me.
Needless to say, my boss has more contact with "higher" circles than I do. I'm an absolute "technical track" engineer, and he's a manager. He was talking with a "big muckety-muck" type and the subject of snakes arose. Apparently, this "muckety-muck" has a sister who agreed to "take care of" a pair of "pythons" while another sister was in Costa Rica for an extended vacation.
While sis was vacationing in Costa Rica, the female dropped a clutch of eggs. The eggs weren't a problem, but when the little ones hatched, the lady wanted to be rid of them. Karma, grace, fear of animal welfare, or some other unknown force kept her from just having a servant flush the lot of them, and she told her brother about the problem. Apparently the snakes came up while he was talking to my boss. They must have been discussing either weird relatives or weird employees, and the result was my boss telling him that I might be willing to take them.
My boss told me to wait for a call, and pretty soon, some lady calls. She gives me directions to her house but doesn't really describe what I'm going to find there. By this time, I've pulled on jeans and a T-shirt that I received for being on the fire crew at work. I tell her that I'll be there in twenty minutes, and away I go.
When I arrived at the house, I regretted dressing so casually. These people probably don't let the hired help mow the yard in clothes as informal as what I was wearing. Unfortunately, it was too late to go home and change. I rang the doorbell, and a tall woman who appeared to be of Creole descent opened the door for me. While the house was clearly a 1990's imitation of the style and grace of old southern homes, this woman could have been a direct descendent of someone who served in a similar house 150 years ago. She had the class that the house (and its inhabitants) lacked.
She led me into a hallway where the woman from the phone call confronted me. She looked me up and down with the disdain that I usually experience only after I've asked for a date. "You're Bill," she stated. Even if I weren't me, I would have tried to become me rather than argue. "Yes ma'am," was all I could muster.
I can never remember everything exactly, but the conversation went something like this.
"So, you want the snakes?"
"Yes ma'am, if you don't mind," I answered.
Looking at the shirt, she said, "You're a fireman?"
"I'm on the crew at work."
"You must not have many fires."
"I'm also an engineer in the Pressure Integrity group, so a lack of fires means that I'm doing my real job well." I always say this with some pride, and even these surroundings couldn't squelch that pride.
"I could tell because someone who fights fires regularly wouldn't be as fat as you are."
I chuckled nervously and said, "Yes ma'am." I wanted to be mad, but my desire for and curiosity about the snakes kept my temper in check.
"Mary," she screeched, "get the little monsters."
While Mary walked down a hallway, this lady complained about her sister, often using terminology that was more appropriate for breeding dogs than for herpetoculture. I worried about the care that these snakes were receiving. Apparently, the sister had departed for four months and told everyone that ball pythons could go four months without food and not to worry about feeding them. I asked whether it would help if I changed water or cleaned a cage, but the lady said that Mary handled those chores. I felt bad for the parent snakes and was glad that I could at least rescue the little ones. I asked what the sister would say about someone taking the hatchlings. She was planning to tell her sister that none of the eggs had hatched.
She insisted that I agree to take the snakes and not blame her regardless of anything. I had to agree that the snakes were entirely my responsibility. I halfway expected her to produce a legal document for me to sign. I was not to tell anyone who might tell her sister what happened. If I made any trouble for her regarding the snakes, bad reports would get back to my boss concerning my conduct.
I agreed, but at this point I was starting to think that they must be Burmese and not Balls. I figured that she knew that Burmese would be harder to move and just wanted to find some sucker to take them. I figured that if worst came to worst, I'd take an ad and sell them here on KS.
Mary returned with a laundry bag tied at the top. I could tell from the elongated lumps in the bottom that there were anywhere from four to maybe twelve baby snakes in the bag. Mary started to hand the bag to my "host," but she yelled, "Don't give me those slimy things! Give them to him!" Mary handed me the bag, and the lady said, "They're yours. Don't blame me for anything."
I was dying to open the bag, but I was also dying to get out of this house.
"Oh by the way," she added. "They're defective. ... I should have drowned them."
My face must have fallen a little at the word "defective" because my mind flashed with an image of baby pythons with kinked backs. They would be more than I really had time to keep, but no one who breeds would want them for their projects. I wouldn't have the heart to put them down, but maybe that's how the whole story would end.
In spite of this image, at "should have drowned them," I couldn't stop a little smirk from crossing my face.
"Ah, it reads," she cackled. "Yes, I know that's Cruella de Ville's line from that book about the dogs. From the looks of you, I wouldn't have thought you'd recognize a literary reference. So you actually read. Amazing!"
"Yes ma'am, in fact, I'm reading David McCullough's Mornings on Horseback right now."
"Oh, one of those, you look like a Republican," she said with even greater disgust.
"I was parish co-chair of David Vitter for Senate in 2004."
I'm too easily distracted by political stuff, but the weight of the bag in my hands brought me back to more important matters.
"May I ask what's wrong with these snakes?" I said, dreading what would be a cruel description of twisted spines.
When she started with, "There's something wrong with their skin," I imagined a mite colony that would take control of my car as I drove home or maybe blisters from an out of control UTH or puddles of stale water on the floor of the tank. These guys were going to be quarantined in the farthest room of my house to keep them from my own little girl.
I almost missed her words as she continued, "Their heads are fine, but below that, they have long stretches of their bodies that are all white. Only half of them have that problem, but they're all from the same eggs. The others are probably infected as well."
"Oh my gosh," I thought. "These aren't defectives. These are pieds." With anyone else, I would have felt bad about taking what I was guessing could be twenty to fifty thousand dollars of snakes without warning the owner what he or she really had. In this case, my conscience just couldn't rise to the occasion. For a moment, I felt a little bad for taking them from the sister, but she was a woman who left her snakes in this house without the option of eating for three or four months. She didn't deserve to have these hatchlings.
I managed to keep my voice from cracking as I asked, "The parents aren't defective are they?"
"No," she replied. "They don't have white patches, and I'm hoping they don't get them. If my (canine reference deleted) sister comes back and finds them with white patches, she'll blame me. That's why I want them out of here."
"I'll do my best with them, ma'am." I said.
Mary showed me to the door again, and my hands were shaking so badly when I reached my car that I could barely get my keys in the ignition. I had driven about halfway home before I stopped at a convenience store to look in the bag. Then I went inside to buy a lottery ticket.
Back at home, I counted my blessings, four little pieds and three possible hets. If I can believe that the parents weren't "defective," they were both hets that threw a clutch of four "aa" pieds. If the "a" gene is that strong in this line, at least one of the normal-looking offspring must be a het.
Yeah, I'm the guy who said that he wasn't interested in breeding and has fun watching all of your projects. I'm the guy who said that he doesn't want to breed balls because he's too worried about finding homes for the little ones. On the other hand, I can always find homes for little pieds and het pieds if I'm willing to go low enough in price or just give them away. Yeah, I'll be one of those guys screwing up the market, but I'll have fun.
I'm taking these guys to the vet next week and getting them all sexed. I'm hoping for at least a male and a female pied. I'll keep those for breeding someday. I'll even breed the male to my little Katrina when she's old enough.
Of the other five, I'm giving one to Tosha because of all the advice that she's given me and for all of her work on the WIR. Making that announcement is not a violation of KS policy about trying to sell or give away snakes on the forums. I'm not "offering." I'm just saying what I'd like to do. Once the vet tells me that they are okay and sexes them, I'll post pictures for Tosha to choose. Regarding my efforts to find good homes for the others, I am open to advice if you'd like to contact me through e-mail. I'm not saying that I'm giving away any snakes or anything else that's a violation of TOS. I'm just open to advice.
Thanks,
Bill
PS. Happy April Fool's day - Tosha kicked us off earlier, and I'm continuing the "fun."
PPS. You must have known where this was going by the third or fourth paragraph, but you've read all the way down here.
PPPS. I wouldn't have thought of this on my own. I read Tosha's little WIR prank just before mowing the yard. As I pushed the mower around, this whole story just came to me. I came in, took a shower, and pounded it out on my keyboard. You can blame Tosha.
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It's not how many snakes you have. It's how happy and healthy you can keep them.
