Horny like a snake...
Mar. 24th, 2007 10:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mad_andyBeen busy today.
First thing this morning we were supposed to get up and go food shopping.
Slay and I basically spent two hours dozing off between snooze alarms, occasionally poking the other one and going:
"'s time t'get up. Geddup. Gotta go sh'ppin'..."
...and then going back to sleep.
Crawled out of bed, decided we didn't have time so we just got spiffed up to go to Jessica's first outing with the school orchestra. (Well, I got spiffed up. A bit. I wore a skirt. Shaddup.)
Jess plays cello, and she was part of the Junior Orchestra. We were subjected to the senior wind band, junior strings, senior jazz... oh god, kill me now. Please. I love my niece to little green pieces - I really do - but being jammed into an uncomfortable plastic chair in a school hall while a crowd of terribly serious-faced pre-adolescents beat the shit out of 'Peter And The Wolf' is part of the reason I never had children of my own.
Anyway.
She looked pretty confident up there on stage, which is a good thing; she's a worrier like her aunty, (*ahem*) and to see her apparently enjoying the experience was, I'll admit, reason enough to go. As was the hug I got afterwards for coming to see her - awwww!
Of course, the damn concert was at my old school. The place I dream about when I'm stressed. The place where a large number of the most miserable, stressed out, and downright fucking torturous years of my life were spent.
Schooldays, in case you hadn't figured it out, were most emphatically not the happiest days for me.
It hasn't changed. They've added some spanking new buildings but no, the paint is still peeling and it still has that faintly desperate air of a grand old place fallen on hard times. It still wants to be a posh grammar school, I swear.
Places burned into my memory: the art block where I took my final art exam wearing dark glasses because I was so hung over; the concreted-in swimming pool that I occasionally got shoved in (before it was concreted over, natch); the corner where I used to sneak off for a smoke, the notice board where the exam results had been, the sixth form centre with the toilets that always stank of tobacco and weed...where I used to go and cry and wish I was dead a lot.
Schooldays.
The place even smells the fucking same.
All the teachers are different now, of course; the parents are still as uptight and genteel middle class as ever, though, as was evinced by the number of funny looks I got.
Ah, Lord Bills, how do I loathe thee.
Still, we went round my mum's afterward and she found a ginger cake she'd forgotten she had, so all was not lost. Tea and ginger cake and the knowledge that, at 35, one is far away from one's school days has a remarkable effect on one's mood!
As does being given a hug by one's niece and told 'you're the best!'
I melted. I admit it, when it comes to Jess I am one big marshmallow.
She was partially so pleased because I rang Pythons Lair and arranged for us to go and take all three snakes up to be sexed. Also because her younger sister decided to stay at home (with her dad, who is not a big fan of things serpent-related) - and we wouldn't therefore be subjected to endless tearful demands for a bearded dragon.
My mum, however, decided that she would come. Interesting, I thought.
So we shot off home to collect Sam and Doris - with the aid of a couple of flowery pillow cases blagged from my dear mama - and agreed to meet Nic, my ma and Jess at the shop.
Sam was hugely unimpressed to be shoved into the bag. He held himself out as long and as awkward as he could--
"I'm-a-stick-I'm-a-stick-I'm-a-sti--"
"Get in the bloody bag."
"I'm-a-ARGH!"
-- but to no avail. Doris had been dozing against her heat mat, as is her wont these days. She's put on rather a lot of weight recently (my fault entirely), and between that and the lengthening days she seems to be gearing her system up to breed. At least, that was my theory, although at the time I had nothing to back it up except her behaviour and a lot of book learning. Plus the last time she went off her food and behaved rather oddly (she almost refused her mouse last thursday - unheard of for Porker Doris) was a springtime, and it passed after a month or so.
So she was warm to the touch, which means she was warm enough to try and dive down my sleeve with alarming alacrity when I tried to put her in the bag.
I won. I always do. It's because I have opposable thumbs.
So off we went, two bagged snakes snugged safely in towels in a cat carrier, the heat in the car turned up to keep them warm for the trip. Luckily snakes are totally deaf, so I could have the music pretty loud.
(Which had the added advantage of irritating the fuck out of Slay.)
Nic, ma and Jess were waiting, Jess tremendously excited and clutching the little plastic pet carrier that held her own snake close to her chest. She and I followed the rest of the gang to the shop, although she was the first across the threshold; ah, the enthusiasm of extreme youth!
Chris welcomed us cheerfully, and we got straight down to business. Jess and Gismo got to go first, and the process of being probed can't be too drastic because she didn't seem to be too bothered by the process. I think Jess winced more than Gismo did, and she was at least four feet away.
Diagnosis confirmed - Gismo is a little girl.
Jess was ecstatic - that was just the result she was hoping for.
I thought I'd get the difficult one out of the way first, and untied Sam's bag. As expected, he was hugely unamused to have been shut in a bag and thrashed about wildly when extricated. Several small children being in the shop, I managed to reign in my desire to swear at the awkward beast; instead I just sort of rolled him around my hands and managed to stop him from biting my nose this time.
"Not a corn snake," I said, "I think he's a yellow rat snake."
Chris took one look and agreed with me; he also agreed that as little more than a hatchling it would have been just about impossible to tell the difference. Which does, of course, raise the other question; why the hell would somebody tell me that they were getting rid of two corn snakes when they were, in actual fact, yellow rats?
Why would someone sell the two snakes as corns instead of the more unusual type of ratsnakes?
I must admit, I've never seen this particular species (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata, for those interested!) for sale anywhere before. So why...?
That aside, Sam was definitely Not Amused to have his hind end grasped firmly but gently by a stranger; although he was so busy moaning about that I don't think he even noticed the probe. It did confirm that Sam is short for Samuel, though.
One grumpy rat snake passed to Slay and it was time to find out if Doris needed a renaming. She still felt nice and warm, but was relaxed and calm through the whole process. I honestly think that Chris knows what he's at and is gentle enough that they barely even notice it - and it certainly isn't painful.
Doris is a girl, just as the breeder told her first owner. And Chris was so enamoured of her that he immediately offered the services of his male corn snake, Tyson; now, Tyson lives at the shop, and he's a delightful animal that we've met on previous visits. Similar in colour to Doris - hypomelanistic, the reds nice and bright - and with the classic, laid back corn snake temperament he's an ideal partner for her.
We let them have a sniff at each other (so to speak - there was lots of very enthusiastic tongue-flickering going on) and I asked Chris how I should go about conditioning Doris. After all, she hadn't been hibernated or anything--
She's in good condition, and has access to natural light - stick 'em together and leave them to it.
See, corns are the closest thing there is to a domesticated reptile. Give them the mildest of biological clues and they're off; that in mind, I asked him when I could borrow Tyson.
Take him home today, he said, and went to find a bag.
So. Chris and I nipped out the back of the shop for a smoke (after I'd retrieved Doris from her comfy perch in the back of my jacket, head by one elbow and tail by the other, strung across my back like the string for a pair of mittens) and he told me to get my ass in gear and get my CV to him.
There's several people after the job, but he'd like me to have it if I send him convincing enough paperwork.
Cor.
He even offered us all tea, but ma was beginning to fidget a bit so I figured we'd best take our leave. Of course, he hadn't charged us for the probing so we ended up spending money anyway. Sam hates the dry substrate that I keep Doris on, so I bought him a great big bale of the moister, forest-bark type that Nic had always had him on. Oh, and a silk plant for his viv.
And so off we went, one snake heavier. And after I'd promised not to, as well....
It didn't occur to me until we were halfway home that I'd been entrusted with quite a lot; Chris had cheerfully loaned me an animal worth several hundred pounds, were he to sell him. No deposit, he hadn't even taken my phone number - I guess he's made the assumption that I'm keen enough to try and work for him that I won't nick his snake.
He's also said that if/when she lays her eggs, if I bring them over to him he'll incubate them. He's got a massive incubator in the middle of the shop, where all the young hatchlings live, and there's a couple of clutches of eggs in there already. Anyway, the arrangement will probably be 50/50 of the eventual clutch, which sounds fair to me.
When we got home Sam's house got a major overhaul. Re-taped the lid (ah-HA! Thick black duck tape, get out of that you little bastard!), changed the substrate to the barky stuff he prefers, and added the plant. Looks great, and he certainly seems happier. Don't ask me how I know, he just seems more relaxed. And he hasn't tried to force the lid off all evening....
Cleaned out Doris' viv, and put her back first then introduced Tyson.
He appeared rather startled to find himself somewhere so different. He's a corn snake; they're so chilled out they're almost horizontal, so he'd no doubt had a little nap in the car and expected to wake up back in the shop.
No, instead he finds himself in a nice new viv - with a horny woman rubbing her body all over him and tickling him with her tongue:
D: "Hey, big boy."
T: "WTF?!"
D: "Hey, it's all cool. Come under my hidebox and we'll party..."
T: *Hammers on glass* "LET ME OUT!!!"
She really likes him. He, in the manner of so many men when faced with a desperate, horny woman, promptly hid. He's actually nicked her nice ceramic hide; she tried to get under there with him, but there wasn't room for them both. So now I can just see his side from the door of the hide, and she's curled up rather grumpily on the other side of the viv - watching him with the intensity only a sex-starved female snake can conjure up. It's the having no eyelids that makes it such a great stare.
I can sympathise with her.
But then - comparing worried snake with snoring husband - I suspect Slay has more than a glimmer of empathy with poor old Tyson, too. ;)
First thing this morning we were supposed to get up and go food shopping.
Slay and I basically spent two hours dozing off between snooze alarms, occasionally poking the other one and going:
"'s time t'get up. Geddup. Gotta go sh'ppin'..."
...and then going back to sleep.
Crawled out of bed, decided we didn't have time so we just got spiffed up to go to Jessica's first outing with the school orchestra. (Well, I got spiffed up. A bit. I wore a skirt. Shaddup.)
Jess plays cello, and she was part of the Junior Orchestra. We were subjected to the senior wind band, junior strings, senior jazz... oh god, kill me now. Please. I love my niece to little green pieces - I really do - but being jammed into an uncomfortable plastic chair in a school hall while a crowd of terribly serious-faced pre-adolescents beat the shit out of 'Peter And The Wolf' is part of the reason I never had children of my own.
Anyway.
She looked pretty confident up there on stage, which is a good thing; she's a worrier like her aunty, (*ahem*) and to see her apparently enjoying the experience was, I'll admit, reason enough to go. As was the hug I got afterwards for coming to see her - awwww!
Of course, the damn concert was at my old school. The place I dream about when I'm stressed. The place where a large number of the most miserable, stressed out, and downright fucking torturous years of my life were spent.
Schooldays, in case you hadn't figured it out, were most emphatically not the happiest days for me.
It hasn't changed. They've added some spanking new buildings but no, the paint is still peeling and it still has that faintly desperate air of a grand old place fallen on hard times. It still wants to be a posh grammar school, I swear.
Places burned into my memory: the art block where I took my final art exam wearing dark glasses because I was so hung over; the concreted-in swimming pool that I occasionally got shoved in (before it was concreted over, natch); the corner where I used to sneak off for a smoke, the notice board where the exam results had been, the sixth form centre with the toilets that always stank of tobacco and weed...where I used to go and cry and wish I was dead a lot.
Schooldays.
The place even smells the fucking same.
All the teachers are different now, of course; the parents are still as uptight and genteel middle class as ever, though, as was evinced by the number of funny looks I got.
Ah, Lord Bills, how do I loathe thee.
Still, we went round my mum's afterward and she found a ginger cake she'd forgotten she had, so all was not lost. Tea and ginger cake and the knowledge that, at 35, one is far away from one's school days has a remarkable effect on one's mood!
As does being given a hug by one's niece and told 'you're the best!'
I melted. I admit it, when it comes to Jess I am one big marshmallow.
She was partially so pleased because I rang Pythons Lair and arranged for us to go and take all three snakes up to be sexed. Also because her younger sister decided to stay at home (with her dad, who is not a big fan of things serpent-related) - and we wouldn't therefore be subjected to endless tearful demands for a bearded dragon.
My mum, however, decided that she would come. Interesting, I thought.
So we shot off home to collect Sam and Doris - with the aid of a couple of flowery pillow cases blagged from my dear mama - and agreed to meet Nic, my ma and Jess at the shop.
Sam was hugely unimpressed to be shoved into the bag. He held himself out as long and as awkward as he could--
"I'm-a-stick-I'm-a-stick-I'm-a-sti--"
"Get in the bloody bag."
"I'm-a-ARGH!"
-- but to no avail. Doris had been dozing against her heat mat, as is her wont these days. She's put on rather a lot of weight recently (my fault entirely), and between that and the lengthening days she seems to be gearing her system up to breed. At least, that was my theory, although at the time I had nothing to back it up except her behaviour and a lot of book learning. Plus the last time she went off her food and behaved rather oddly (she almost refused her mouse last thursday - unheard of for Porker Doris) was a springtime, and it passed after a month or so.
So she was warm to the touch, which means she was warm enough to try and dive down my sleeve with alarming alacrity when I tried to put her in the bag.
I won. I always do. It's because I have opposable thumbs.
So off we went, two bagged snakes snugged safely in towels in a cat carrier, the heat in the car turned up to keep them warm for the trip. Luckily snakes are totally deaf, so I could have the music pretty loud.
(Which had the added advantage of irritating the fuck out of Slay.)
Nic, ma and Jess were waiting, Jess tremendously excited and clutching the little plastic pet carrier that held her own snake close to her chest. She and I followed the rest of the gang to the shop, although she was the first across the threshold; ah, the enthusiasm of extreme youth!
Chris welcomed us cheerfully, and we got straight down to business. Jess and Gismo got to go first, and the process of being probed can't be too drastic because she didn't seem to be too bothered by the process. I think Jess winced more than Gismo did, and she was at least four feet away.
Diagnosis confirmed - Gismo is a little girl.
Jess was ecstatic - that was just the result she was hoping for.
I thought I'd get the difficult one out of the way first, and untied Sam's bag. As expected, he was hugely unamused to have been shut in a bag and thrashed about wildly when extricated. Several small children being in the shop, I managed to reign in my desire to swear at the awkward beast; instead I just sort of rolled him around my hands and managed to stop him from biting my nose this time.
"Not a corn snake," I said, "I think he's a yellow rat snake."
Chris took one look and agreed with me; he also agreed that as little more than a hatchling it would have been just about impossible to tell the difference. Which does, of course, raise the other question; why the hell would somebody tell me that they were getting rid of two corn snakes when they were, in actual fact, yellow rats?
Why would someone sell the two snakes as corns instead of the more unusual type of ratsnakes?
I must admit, I've never seen this particular species (Elaphe obsoleta quadrivittata, for those interested!) for sale anywhere before. So why...?
That aside, Sam was definitely Not Amused to have his hind end grasped firmly but gently by a stranger; although he was so busy moaning about that I don't think he even noticed the probe. It did confirm that Sam is short for Samuel, though.
One grumpy rat snake passed to Slay and it was time to find out if Doris needed a renaming. She still felt nice and warm, but was relaxed and calm through the whole process. I honestly think that Chris knows what he's at and is gentle enough that they barely even notice it - and it certainly isn't painful.
Doris is a girl, just as the breeder told her first owner. And Chris was so enamoured of her that he immediately offered the services of his male corn snake, Tyson; now, Tyson lives at the shop, and he's a delightful animal that we've met on previous visits. Similar in colour to Doris - hypomelanistic, the reds nice and bright - and with the classic, laid back corn snake temperament he's an ideal partner for her.
We let them have a sniff at each other (so to speak - there was lots of very enthusiastic tongue-flickering going on) and I asked Chris how I should go about conditioning Doris. After all, she hadn't been hibernated or anything--
She's in good condition, and has access to natural light - stick 'em together and leave them to it.
See, corns are the closest thing there is to a domesticated reptile. Give them the mildest of biological clues and they're off; that in mind, I asked him when I could borrow Tyson.
Take him home today, he said, and went to find a bag.
So. Chris and I nipped out the back of the shop for a smoke (after I'd retrieved Doris from her comfy perch in the back of my jacket, head by one elbow and tail by the other, strung across my back like the string for a pair of mittens) and he told me to get my ass in gear and get my CV to him.
There's several people after the job, but he'd like me to have it if I send him convincing enough paperwork.
Cor.
He even offered us all tea, but ma was beginning to fidget a bit so I figured we'd best take our leave. Of course, he hadn't charged us for the probing so we ended up spending money anyway. Sam hates the dry substrate that I keep Doris on, so I bought him a great big bale of the moister, forest-bark type that Nic had always had him on. Oh, and a silk plant for his viv.
And so off we went, one snake heavier. And after I'd promised not to, as well....
It didn't occur to me until we were halfway home that I'd been entrusted with quite a lot; Chris had cheerfully loaned me an animal worth several hundred pounds, were he to sell him. No deposit, he hadn't even taken my phone number - I guess he's made the assumption that I'm keen enough to try and work for him that I won't nick his snake.
He's also said that if/when she lays her eggs, if I bring them over to him he'll incubate them. He's got a massive incubator in the middle of the shop, where all the young hatchlings live, and there's a couple of clutches of eggs in there already. Anyway, the arrangement will probably be 50/50 of the eventual clutch, which sounds fair to me.
When we got home Sam's house got a major overhaul. Re-taped the lid (ah-HA! Thick black duck tape, get out of that you little bastard!), changed the substrate to the barky stuff he prefers, and added the plant. Looks great, and he certainly seems happier. Don't ask me how I know, he just seems more relaxed. And he hasn't tried to force the lid off all evening....
Cleaned out Doris' viv, and put her back first then introduced Tyson.
He appeared rather startled to find himself somewhere so different. He's a corn snake; they're so chilled out they're almost horizontal, so he'd no doubt had a little nap in the car and expected to wake up back in the shop.
No, instead he finds himself in a nice new viv - with a horny woman rubbing her body all over him and tickling him with her tongue:
D: "Hey, big boy."
T: "WTF?!"
D: "Hey, it's all cool. Come under my hidebox and we'll party..."
T: *Hammers on glass* "LET ME OUT!!!"
She really likes him. He, in the manner of so many men when faced with a desperate, horny woman, promptly hid. He's actually nicked her nice ceramic hide; she tried to get under there with him, but there wasn't room for them both. So now I can just see his side from the door of the hide, and she's curled up rather grumpily on the other side of the viv - watching him with the intensity only a sex-starved female snake can conjure up. It's the having no eyelids that makes it such a great stare.
I can sympathise with her.
But then - comparing worried snake with snoring husband - I suspect Slay has more than a glimmer of empathy with poor old Tyson, too. ;)
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no subject
Date: 2007-03-25 01:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-25 01:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-03-25 11:06 am (UTC)I have been chortling all the way through this. Best of luck to Doris. Go get 'im, girl!
no subject
Date: 2007-04-02 05:38 pm (UTC)Snake tales are ace :-)