How did I get here?

Remember that children's book, Put Me in the Zoo?  It's a grand idea.  If you're six.  If you don't like the reality of people in and out of your house all day, everyday (or enjoy walking around in a towel after a shower, or hanging out in your jammies and robe until midmorning) to use the bathroom, or wash animal dishes in the sink (nevermind that you wanted to make dinner,) or looking for bandaids, or each other...not so much.  Giant tortoises destroying your phlox?  Evacuating the backyard to allow bobcat training?  Having your eardrums pierced by the screeching calls of a cockatoo, or other assorted exotic birds?  Don't let's even mention the snakes, and lizards, and bugs.  Parking on the street, because no one thought to leave a space in the driveway for the lady of the house?  Welcome to my world.

You ever wake up one morning, take a look around, and wonder how the hell your life turned left when you weren't looking?  Maybe it was Saturn taking a swing through my 1st house, but that's exactly what happend to me a couple of years ago.  First, I tried to fix it.  Then, I tried getting bitchy about it.  After that I just got...sad.  And baffled.  Coming out the other side, I decided to write about it.

So, how did someone who doesn't own a pair of sneakers, thinks heels go with everything, doesn't feel complete without lipstick (in short, a diva, darling) and hates, hates, hates snakes....end up living in a zoo?  Let me tell you a story...

It all began, looking back, with a snake in a grill.  The backyard barbeque kind.

A little back story.  When I met the zookeeper, he didn't have any animals.  He did give me a kitten for Christmas one year, if that counts.  He was actually a network equipment sales guy.  We were living in a cozy condo, newly juiced to know that our first child was on her way, and still hemming and hawing about when the actual wedding would take place. (That is another story for a different day.)  One morning he answered The Phone Call That Changed My Life.  It was a neighbor in the complex, calling to say that when she went out to use her grill, she found a snake in it.  Since her husband was already gone for the day, could my guy come and get rid of it for her?  (Side note.  I would have done the exact same thing.)

Off he goes, all hero ready to save the damsel in distress, while I'm thinking garter snake, or something like that.  A very small snake, that can be removed from the grill and let go in the woods, free to slither away and go on with his little snaky life.  Imagine my surprise when about a half hour later he comes home...carrying a pillow case.  With a lump in it.  A suspiciously snaky lump in it.

Me:  "Jesus Christ!  Why did you bring it home!?"  Did I mention that I hate snakes?  I have a very valid reason, since I spent my childhood in South Carolina, where many of the snakes we saw on a daily basis were venomous.  I picked up a coral snake on a camping trip when I was a toddler, and my parents felt it was their God-given duty to instill a fear of them in me, so that in my stupidity I didn't end up getting bitten and, you know, dying.

Turns out, it wasn't a garter snake.  Of all the random things you could find in your grill, a ball python wouldn't even make my top 1000 list.  Obviously someone had kept it as a pet, and it either escaped or was let go.  We found an ugly green plastic tote with a lid, and the hero set out, at my insistant urging, to see if he could find who it belonged to.

Me:  "You know that we are not keeping it, right?"

A few days later...Me:  "Can't we take it to the Humane Society?"  Answer:  "No, they don't know what to do with reptiles there."

A few more days after that...Me:  "Have you found out who owns it yet?"  Answer:  "Not yet."

Two weeks go by, and the snake is still hanging out in his ugly green tote, now with air holes poked into it.  The hero has taken it out several times to play with it (or what ever it is that you do with a pet snake), each time sending me cringing out of the room, hauling the cat with me, since I read somewhere that cats will eat snakes.  Gross, and not something I wanted to clean off the living room carpet.  Meanwhile, I'm starting to wonder if it needs to eat, or something.  I don't like (hate) snakes, but that doesn't mean I wanted it to die in it's ugly green tote. Which lead me to utter The Famous Last Words That Started It All... 

Me:  "Well, if you're going to keep it, you really need to get something better to put it in..."

This bit of sarcasm was seen, in the way of men and small children, as permission to do exactly that.  A few late nights searching the internet, and the networking sales guy found a group (now defunct) of fellow herpetologists to join.  After a few months go by, he traded that common ball python for not one but two snakes and joined the board of his snake society.  The damsel rescue had lead to a new hobby.

I was busy getting laid off from my job with a software company 6 1/2 months gone with daughter number one, and starting to look like I swallowed a watermelon, whole.  Kind of like a snake swallowing it's prey, now that I think about it...  Which means I was too busy wondering about mundane things like health insurance and birth plans to pay attention, leading to me completely miss seeing the moment when networking sales guy went from an interesting new hobby to Finding His Calling. 

In my defense, your honor, it was easy to miss.  Especially since it would be three more years at least before network equipment sales guy actually became the zookeeper.  But yeah.  I live in a zoo because some idiot with a pet snake let it out, and it ended up in my neighbor's grill.  Those damn left turns will get you every. single. time.