(Originally published in The Plain Talker, March 2006)
As one grows up-- or gets older, for those of us who refuse to grow up-- it is important to do all you can to be a good influence on the next generation. You have a limited amount of time to do this, since they're maturing and you are not, and you want to get in all the influencing you can before they are more mature than you.
I have been trying to do my part, with some limited success. In one case, I haven't been able to convince Daniel Woodall that skiing five times per day is an admirable yet attainable goal; part of the problem, though, is the lake is good for skiing for about seven hours per day, and for six of those it's too dark out to ski.
Daniel still has odd taste in music (in other words, he likes what is popular, rather than what is good) and he still cheers for the wrong team on Saturdays. He'll probably grow out of the first problem, but that last problem is genetic, and won't change.
But all is not lost. Thanks partly to me, partly to his environment, and partly to cosmic factors, Daniel likes critters. Snakes, frogs, turtles, lizards, you name it. (He even has a magical touch that I never had; he is the only person I know who has stalked and caught--caught, not shot-- one of the wild Canada Geese that call Lake Martin home.)
When we can get away in the spring, and quite often during the summer, Daniel and I will set off into the wilderness, searching for snakes, tracking turtles, finding frogs, and looking for lizards. Sometimes we find what we're looking for, and almost always we find mosquitoes, stickers bushes, and chiggers. Those, we leave behind. The snakes we find… we also leaves behind. Because while Daniel loves critters, his mother hates them. Well, maybe "hate" isn't the right word; "has an unnatural deathly fear of" is more accurate.
My Aunt Betty Jo has the worst snake phobia I've ever seen; she once threw out a closetful of shoes because a snake touched one of the shoes. Daniels's mother is close; she is positive that she can't sleep if a snake is in the house, because it will get out of the cage, climb in bed with her, and strangle her. Any snake, even a tiny hatchling.
So when I gave Daniel a snake for Christmas, I was pretty sure I was going to be keeping it for myself. In fact, that was the deal. We were at a reptile show, and being surrounded by captive-born hatchlings of so many species was just too tempting. So I bought a Sinaloan Milksnake (which has the same coloration as a deadly Coral Snake, but the colored bands are in a different order) and told Daniel that it was his Christmas present if his mother would let him keep it; otherwise, I'd keep it for myself, and get him something else.
We went back to his house, hoping that his dad would be home, so that we could get him on Daniel's side before confronting his mother. No such luck. His sister was home, and agreed the snake was "cute," but that wasn't going to help Daniel's argument any.
We decided that the best course of action would be to approach things slowly, to convince Daniel's mother of the joys of being a snake owner before letting her know that it could happen sooner than she thought. So Daniel hid the snake (which was in a small Tupperware container) in one of the kitchen drawers, moments before his mother got home.
Daniel didn't get as much time to sell his mother as he thought he would; naturally, the first thing she did when she walked into the kitchen was open that drawer. And just like that, the secret was out; the chance of the soft sell was history.
Surprisingly, she didn't immediately throw the snake… and me… and Daniel, too… out of the house. Sensing a weakness, Daniel went in for the kill, explaining the he alone would take care of the snake, that the local pet store carried special locking aquarium lids that no snake (especially this little hatchling) could escape from, that this snake wouldn't cost her any money.
She didn't say no… yet. Give her credit, she was trying hard not to just say "no!" and be done with it, most likely because she didn't want Daniel to be able to rightfully call her "unreasonable." But, no question, she did want to say "no," very much.
The issue of feeding came up, followed immediately by the issue of food. And this was, we saw, going to be the sticking point. Because this snake, like many snakes, is a rodent-eater. And no way was she going to allow live rodents in the house.
And she didn't have to, since the popularity of breeding and selling snakes has led to the cottage industry of breeding and selling snake food: rodents of every size, frozen in individual servings. Now snake owners no longer have to breed their own rodents, or make those frequent trips to the pet store when it's time to feed the snake. All the owner has to do is thaw out dinner, feed it to the snake, and forget about it until next time.
"And just where do you keep these frozen mice," asked Daniel's mother. "No way are you keeping dead animals in my refrigerator!" Which would have been a better argument if she hadn't immediately followed it with "It's time for lunch; do you want ham, roast beef, or turkey?"
I said I'd have the dead bird; Daniel went for the dead cow.
In the end, Daniel kept the snake, and I kept the way cool flashlight that I was going to give him instead; it will get a lot of use when we go out looking for frogs and other critters of the night. Also getting some use is the new basement freezer in the Woodall home; as it turns out, Daniel's mom wasn't as strict about the "no dead animals" thing as she first thought, but dead mice aren't as permissible as lunchmeat.