Excuse me, I'd like to order a snake

The last time I posted was last year? Eeks! I haven’t exactly abandoned this blog. In my defence, I have checked on it from time to time to see whether I put any new posts up. I haven’t, clearly. 

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I was at the annual day celebration of a non-profit animal organisation last week. It was a series of speeches and videos covering the events of the past year. I sat up eagerly when a wildlife veterinarian strode up to speak. Wildlife vets have the best job in the world in my opinion. Not the easiest, for sure, but they have my admiration and respect – and a dash of envy. 

She regaled the audience with tales of rescues – birds, little rodents, tortoises and snakes all enmeshed in the tangles of our urban jungle. She went on to educate the audience about snakes, the need to avoid killing them on sight, and the usefulness of snakes like Rat Snakes that curb vermin. She ended by reminding us that wildlife must be respected – they’re not pets.

Soon after this, there was a buffet lunch. As I made my way across to the lunch area, I stumbled across a lady that lives in my neighbourhood. We exchanged pleasantries before she said, “You know, I’m waiting to speak to one of the people from the welfare group.”

“Oh,” I said, noticing that she looked quite antsy. “What about?”

“You know I have a huge garden, right?” she asked. I said yes, recalling she has a massive garden, teeming with trees and flowering creepers. 

“I want to ask them how I can introduce a Rat Snake into my garden.”

“Huh?”

“There are so many rats in my garden. I was wondering how I can get a Rat Snake into my garden to control the rats. May be they could release a Rat Snake in my garden?”

I could feel little ripples of laughter gurgling up to the surface. “You should probably ask the wildlife vet,” I suggested, hoping I could be privy to that conversation when it happened. Seeing as how my words clearly seemed to fortify her notion that she’d had a brainwave, I added warmly, “You have a lovely garden. Any Rat Snake would be happy there.” 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t privy to the request for a Rat Snake, but I would give anything to find out how that went down.