Last week I watched a news report on the first annual Connecticut Exotic Pet Amnesty Day. The Florida Wildlife Fish and Game Commission has hosted these for several years now. The pets are collected, examined by vets, where possible adopted by other pet owners or placed in zoos. Many of the pets are not illegal to own, just become very hard to care for. The owners, wrongly think it is okay to release them into the wild. A vast majority of these pets will die. Captive bred pets have not learned the skills necessary to survive in the wild. On the flip side of that, some animals thrive and take over the Ecosystem they are released into in and “invasive species” kind of way. Iguanas and Burmese pythons have established populations in Florida. Chameleons are causing concern in Hawaii. Even Parakeets have colonized some areas to the detriment of native species and agriculture.
Many of the exotic pets I know of can be deadly. I’m even afraid of Pit Bulls and Rottweilers. I could never understand why you would bring something into your house that could kill you. I realize guns and knives and household cleaners can kill me, but they require an action on human part for that to happen. I’m talking something that without you doing anything can kill you.
Then I realized that I play around with stuff that has great potential to hurt me, and don’t really give it a second thought. Things that are deadly to my spiritual and emotional life. I get out of the habit of reading my Bible every morning. I don’t discipline my kids on issues of behavior because it’s easier to pretend I’m unaware (don’t judge me, remember this when you are on kids 4 and 5 well into their teenage years. You just get tired). I become lazy in my marriage and don’t let my husband know how wonderful he really is. After a long rough day at work when you get home to a mountain of laundry, a sink full of dishes, 3 hungry people watching TV and playing basketball (NOT doing any chores) the last thing I want to do is smile and say “hi everyone. How was your day? DID YOU ENJOY DOING NOTHING???” Okay, got that out of my system. They all have selective vision, they really don’t see the dishes or dust.
So I’m declaring an amnesty day, I’m looking at my life and deciding what “exotic pets” need to go. Some are illegal and will require confession and forgiveness. Some have just grown too big for me to handle and I just need to let them go, not take care of them anymore.
Now to make this a “horror” blog, I’m going to share three TRUE LIFE snake stories.
1. From my son – a guy had taken care of his boa and forgot to put the top on the terrarium. He then went to bed and to sleep. He woke up with the snake stretched out next to him on the bed. He thought it was dead, but when he picked it up it was still alive so he put it back in the terrarium and took it to the vet. The vet told him the snake was “sizing him up”, he was about to be breakfast. When the victim is alive, they have to crush it and kill it. But if it’s already dead, they just size him up and swallow. Terrifying. Really. (My nephew actually knows this guy.)
2. From a friend of my husband – he and his dad had gone to youth camp and his mom had stayed home. She sat down to lunch one day while they were gone and looked across the table and a snake was slithering up the chair across the table from her. She got the broom and poked and tried to push it out the door onto the deck. She got it close and it slithered behind the refrigerator. She caught it on the broom and threw it on the deck. It opened its mouth and hissed at her, and it was a cotton mouth. She got the hoe, and killed the snake (and splintered part of the deck, I’m told) and then didn’t think her husband and son would believe her, so she hung it over the grill till they got home. Friend made the comment, wonder how long it had been living under our dining room table?
3. Preacher on the radio this morning – snake handler had a boa from the time it was 7 inches long. Trained it, fed it, took care of it, took it to exhibitions. Last exhibition he took it too, he opened the cage, the snake slithered out and wrapped himself around the handler. The crowd went wild for about 30 seconds. Then they noticed the guy turning blue. It got very quiet, and they could hear the sound of bones breaking.
Ugh!! Eew! Yeek!! Ahh! *shudder*
ReplyDeleteOkay, now that I have that out of my system (even though my feet are STILL up off the ground, thankyouverymuch). YUCK!!!
Oh wait. I had a point here. Oh yeah. I think you have a tremendous gift for life application of Biblical principles. You take everyday stuff and relate it to scripture. I'm actually a bit covetous of this. (confession) It's what really keeps me reading. You get me, hook, line & sinker every time. Here I think it's gonna be some great tale-weaving and it turns out to point right back to God. That's a gift, my dear!
Growing up in Florida, I have plenty of snakes-scare-the-pooh-out-of-me stories, but I'll share just one. We lived on an "island", so obviously surrounded by water. It was the early morning of April 1 (I kid you not) & my former step-dad (who had an artificial leg which caused a slight limp) meandered into the kitchen for a snack. He saw a snake sitting on the counter and just chalked it up to my brother playing an April Fool's joke. He picked up the snake to throw it away and it moved. At that point, he hobbled as fast as he could down the long hallway to the garage, grabbed a hoe, hobbled back and hacked the snot out of this thing. Amazingly, my room was only 15 feet away & I never heard a thing. I got the story the next morning, and thus was born my severe paranoia of anything with scales.