How I got this way

Before tonight I already knew that my father used to own a boa constrictor whom he took on walks (this was when he was a med student, maybe also as an undergrad). However, it was only tonight that I learned that the snake was eight feet long and once got coiled so nearly inextricably up behind a radiator that he had be to be injected with nembutal before it could be removed, and that he was named Siegfried, "because he was so idle".

Comments

[Belle Lettre]

Stories like this endear you to me.

And yeah, they explain a lot.

[bitchphd]

What kind of stupid snake is that?

[ben wolfson]

A boa constrictor.

[bitchphd]

A stupid boa constrictor. How do they ever survive if they manage to get themselves all squished up in places they can't extricate themselves from?

[ben wolfson]

It could have if it wanted to, probably, but it was warm there and cold elsewhere, so it didn't. My dad couldn't extricate it, and wanted to do so for fear that it would be injured if the radiator got too hot.

[My Alter Ego]

It sounds odd to say that your father took the snake on walks. It seems certain that your father did all the walking. Perhaps the snake slithered along side him. Was the snake on a leash? How would one attach a leash to a snake? They don't really have necks as such. Or perhaps the snake was in a backpack. Or a pram! I'm sure that would have caught the attention of the young ladies in the park. "Ooh! Is it a boy or a . . . SNAAAAKE!!!!" That works nine times out of ten; the tenth one is a keeper.

In any case, I imagine that the excursions in question would be more accurately described by saying that that your father "took the snake with him when he went on walks."

[ben wolfson]

The snake was in a laundry bag, actually. He would take the snake to the quads so that the snake could take a constitutional there, but, as he described it, when it was sunny, he would just lie there in the sun, and when it was not sunny, he would just lie there in the not sun.

[bitchphd]

when it was sunny, he would just lie there in the sun, and when it was not sunny, he would just lie there in the not sun

That's hilarious.

[Blume]

I really had imagined the snake with a leash just below its head, slithering along beside your dad. And that made me think of the flaneur walking his turtle.

[ben wolfson]

Quite so. This had, in fact, come up because I told the flaneurisy joke at dinner. (He was the only one who got it.)

Before the laundry bag issue had been cleared up, I too pictured him with the snake on a leash.