Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Tuesday night my neighbor knocked on the door and said "hey, I think one of your critters is loose". I followed hin outside and sure enough, there was one of my Spilotes crawling OUTSIDE my garage door. I travel alot on biz. and my son mists and waters my herps while I'm gone, so HOW it got loose was dealt with in another secenario.

Anyway, I rushed to grab it and it bolted up underneath my pick-up. I popped the hood and down into the block it went! Bad thing is I was headed out for a really important business dinner. So, there I am in my finest clothes under the truck like a grease monkey looking for the snake. Nada! I had to make the meeting and reluctantly left. I came home and searched again - Nada!

I went out every 10 minutes the following day but it was gonzo!
To make along story short, on a hunch I popped the hood tonight and there it was coiled up on the windshield washer fluid tank! I've had less mobile and active snakes escape over the years and found them all but I'd figured a Spilotes would've been long gone. Fortunately its still in the mid 80s here in Vegas - a month from now it would've been cooked - or killed by an ignorant neighbor.

Bill

I had a seven foot female Spilotes dart out of the cage as I was changing water bowls the night before a flight to California. I locked my snake proof room and got on the plane. The first night there I got a phone call at midnight and my wife was crying and asked me if there was anything I needed to tell her. I asked why she was crying and she wondered if I knew why the dishes in the kitchen cupboard were breaking with the cupboard doors closed. I had to think fast I knew that there was a seven foot female Spilotes with attitude on the other side of those doors. I had two choices go strait to the airport and book a flight home or have my wife catch and bag a Spilotes with attitude. How do you get a woman who is scared of snakes to catch and bag a snake that most herpers would not touch? Get her Mad? Yes that is what I will do get her mad at me and she will do it.
I told her over the phone she was acting like a small child, a sissy stop your Boo Whooing. Whoa, I got attitude right away her tears turned to blind rage. Next I told her to get a pillow case as she cursed me. I could hear her in the background rehearsing a scene from Crocodile Dundee out loud and I knew when she had the snake she was screaming crying and cursing all at the same time. She did bag the snake and I did have hell to pay. It is a subject I avoid at all cost when she is listening. The snake must have zipped out of the room as I went in and out filling other water bowels.

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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

HaHa! Nice. My wife-fiance' at the time all of a sudden refused to come over to my house. I asked her why and she said the last time she'd come over when I was traveling there were 3 Black Tree Monitors basking on the slats of the plantation shutters in the window! I'd had a mass jail-break while I was gone!

Fortunately my Spilotes are all F2 cb snakes and really docile animals. Their parents are 9' (tough to measure a Spilotes) and are also dog-tame. None of them will even bluff-posture - though at feeding time their true voracious nature comes ouy big time!

Bill

I think our wife shouldn't meet... . Or we be banned in our own home.

Yes, now my wife gets PMS and PTS (Post Traumatic Stress!) I think there are some other syndroms they haven't found names for yet!

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"Life without risk is to merely exist."

Hahahaha!
My wife called 2 years ago, crying and yelling, when she was pregnant. My big male tegu was running after her in the house....She called me from her cellphone in the car, hahahaha! Now, my boy, 2½ years old later, is always trying to find the key to open the cage. So now, my wife still yelling when he find them....