| One night I was driving home from a really bad day at work. I knew I had to stop at the pet shop and pick up some crickets for our anoles. I had found out that day one of my little customers (I was a dog groomer) had died unexpectedly, my heart was filled with grief all day. I didn't mind stopping at the pet store, the girls there were nice and knew me. When I went in they were a little busy so I quietly wandered around the little store. I knew there were some snakes there. Indeed there were ~ in one 20 gallon there were two adult ballpythons and a colombian boa! They had a heat lamp and a bowl of water, but looked rag-tag at best last time I saw them. On this night there was only one ball python left ~ the one that had been haunting me for many weeks. Her skin was dry and cracked, and had many pieces tattered and stuck. The little red ticks that had been on her, the girls had caringly removed, but she looked sad and not too plump. I asked one of the girls if it was possible for me to hold her ~ they said sure and picked her right up and put her in my lap. I had never, ever held a python in my life and I will remember it forever. She was shy and I had to gently roll her around (in a ball) to examine her. Thankfully and incredibly she did not have any mites on her, she was quite strong and she did finally come undone to explore me a little. I even checked her mouth ~ a first for me with a python ~ and she hated it! But it was free of any problems. I had been furiously debating this for about 3 months...a wild caught imported ball python adult can really be a huge undertaking, but all this time of thought and all that research ended that night. I paid $20.00 for her and she was placed in a box with some chips in it and I took "Togo" home. When I brought her in the house and showed my husband I cried, but instead they were tears of joy replacing all the hurt I'd felt all day, we spent quite a while gently bathing the crud and dry skin off her body and prepared her house. That was quite a while ago, and we now are handsomely rewarded with a shiny, fat, happy, friendly snake who is very dear to us! She is a mama's girl but maybe she remembers that night too. |
