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Mar. 15th, 2009 11:03 pm...gah.
So many things have been going on in the past two weeks; I can't keep track of it all.
One thing I can tell you all about, though, is the snake-capades.
The mystery snake, after much going back and forth and leaving un-returned messages for people, has turned out to be a ball python. And a lovely one, at that. Yesterday, the Engineer and I drove over to the city to pick it up.
The story of how she (we think it's a she, but she needs to go to the vet for us to be positive) came into my hands is: Picture if you will, some dickbag frat boy named Bryan who thinks that owning a snake is, like, cool maaan. Dickbag frat boy up and decides to move out of state and the alledged new owner of the snake backs out of taking her. Thus, he decides that leaving her in the house he was living at, for his now ex-roommates to take care of, was a fantastic idea.
Said group of now ex-roommates don't know the slightest thing about snakes and are, in fact, quite afraid of the creature. They look for someone to take her in and occasionally pour water into her bowl through the lid of the woefully inadaquete tank she's living in.
Word of this gets to me and I, in all of my absolutely ridiculous soft-heartedness, agree to take her in. I am given a phone number to call, I leave a message. The person calls me back and leaves me a message. I call back, leave a message, and hear nothing for quite some time. I call again, still nothing. I complain to the Engineer, who says something to the person who put us in touch with these people in the first place, who contacts one of the roommates, who authorizes his phone to be given to me, who I then call.
Got all that? Good.
I am sent photographs of the tank set-up and some blurry images of the snake itself. Through these, I'm able to figure it's not the type of snake likely to eat my face in the middle of the night. I make plans to pick it up.
Arriving at the house, I saw that the tank was enormous and actually an aquarium. It is also setup in a woefully inadequete manner. There's an undertank heating pad, which is good. But, there's only one (too small) hide box. There are no temperature/humidity gauges. There is only a clamp light on top of the tank, with only a common household lightbulb screwed into it.
The tank is also completely covered in ancient snake poo, shed skin, and some other kind of unidentifible stains all over the astro-turf-like substrate. It stinks like death when I learn over to peer inside the screen top and I am unable to keep the disgust from my face. My heart keeps twisting in my chest in dismay at these conditions and I wanted to just start screaming.
The snake itself is trapped in an unsuccessful shed. Miserable and blinded from shed skin stuck to her eyes, she laid coiled up under the (too small) log hide and tongue flicked at me as I undid the cage clamps and started taking things out of the tank.
I had brought heavy duty gloves with me to handle the snake, even though I'd been promised she was as docile as they come. I didn't want to take any chances. However, within five seconds of pulling her out of the tank, I can tell she's a sweetheart. She was so calm, she just coiled around my arm and rested her head on my chest.
Instantly, I am in love.
She's about three and a half feet long and seems to be quite healthy, despite the deplorable conditions she was being kept in, and lighter in color than most regular ball pythons I've seen. No mites, no indication of respiratory infection. Really, the only things which seemed wrong were the stuck skin and the fact she hasn't been fed in over a month.
We get her back home, set her up in the tank she came with for the time being, then go back out for supplies. I needed a new tank, proper substrate, gauges, a new heating pad, new hides, and a stick to climb on/rub shedding on.
She's currently set-up in my living room because at the moment, I don't have any where to put a tank this size. Last night, I ran a shallow bath and played water moccasion games with her, in an effort to get the shed unstuck (mostly successful last night, and then completely successful this evening- she is able to see from both eyes now).
I'm giving her some time before I try to feed her, maybe a couple more days to recover from all of the excitement of the past few. And, unless she turns out to be a boysnake, I'm calling her Mrs. Robinson.
There has been a lot of singing in my apartment since that decision.
Snakes need to be sung to, you know.
So many things have been going on in the past two weeks; I can't keep track of it all.
One thing I can tell you all about, though, is the snake-capades.
The mystery snake, after much going back and forth and leaving un-returned messages for people, has turned out to be a ball python. And a lovely one, at that. Yesterday, the Engineer and I drove over to the city to pick it up.
The story of how she (we think it's a she, but she needs to go to the vet for us to be positive) came into my hands is: Picture if you will, some dickbag frat boy named Bryan who thinks that owning a snake is, like, cool maaan. Dickbag frat boy up and decides to move out of state and the alledged new owner of the snake backs out of taking her. Thus, he decides that leaving her in the house he was living at, for his now ex-roommates to take care of, was a fantastic idea.
Said group of now ex-roommates don't know the slightest thing about snakes and are, in fact, quite afraid of the creature. They look for someone to take her in and occasionally pour water into her bowl through the lid of the woefully inadaquete tank she's living in.
Word of this gets to me and I, in all of my absolutely ridiculous soft-heartedness, agree to take her in. I am given a phone number to call, I leave a message. The person calls me back and leaves me a message. I call back, leave a message, and hear nothing for quite some time. I call again, still nothing. I complain to the Engineer, who says something to the person who put us in touch with these people in the first place, who contacts one of the roommates, who authorizes his phone to be given to me, who I then call.
Got all that? Good.
I am sent photographs of the tank set-up and some blurry images of the snake itself. Through these, I'm able to figure it's not the type of snake likely to eat my face in the middle of the night. I make plans to pick it up.
Arriving at the house, I saw that the tank was enormous and actually an aquarium. It is also setup in a woefully inadequete manner. There's an undertank heating pad, which is good. But, there's only one (too small) hide box. There are no temperature/humidity gauges. There is only a clamp light on top of the tank, with only a common household lightbulb screwed into it.
The tank is also completely covered in ancient snake poo, shed skin, and some other kind of unidentifible stains all over the astro-turf-like substrate. It stinks like death when I learn over to peer inside the screen top and I am unable to keep the disgust from my face. My heart keeps twisting in my chest in dismay at these conditions and I wanted to just start screaming.
The snake itself is trapped in an unsuccessful shed. Miserable and blinded from shed skin stuck to her eyes, she laid coiled up under the (too small) log hide and tongue flicked at me as I undid the cage clamps and started taking things out of the tank.
I had brought heavy duty gloves with me to handle the snake, even though I'd been promised she was as docile as they come. I didn't want to take any chances. However, within five seconds of pulling her out of the tank, I can tell she's a sweetheart. She was so calm, she just coiled around my arm and rested her head on my chest.
Instantly, I am in love.
She's about three and a half feet long and seems to be quite healthy, despite the deplorable conditions she was being kept in, and lighter in color than most regular ball pythons I've seen. No mites, no indication of respiratory infection. Really, the only things which seemed wrong were the stuck skin and the fact she hasn't been fed in over a month.
We get her back home, set her up in the tank she came with for the time being, then go back out for supplies. I needed a new tank, proper substrate, gauges, a new heating pad, new hides, and a stick to climb on/rub shedding on.
She's currently set-up in my living room because at the moment, I don't have any where to put a tank this size. Last night, I ran a shallow bath and played water moccasion games with her, in an effort to get the shed unstuck (mostly successful last night, and then completely successful this evening- she is able to see from both eyes now).
I'm giving her some time before I try to feed her, maybe a couple more days to recover from all of the excitement of the past few. And, unless she turns out to be a boysnake, I'm calling her Mrs. Robinson.
There has been a lot of singing in my apartment since that decision.
Snakes need to be sung to, you know.
