Allison owned one of the snakes before we met. She got him (or her, we're not sure) from a camp (for kids) that no longer needed it. That snake, a ball python, was pretty small when she got it, but it was very cute. Dan had always wanted a snake, so he was very pleased to find that Allison had no aversion to them.

Sadly, the snake had no name. Dan's father suggested that the snake be named Monty. The name was presented to the snake, and the snake approved by doing nothing. Snakes are not particularly bright.

When Monty became too smelly for Allison's small apartment, she moved it to Dan's place. Monty seemed cooped up in its small cage, so Dan and Allison went out to get a bigger cage. (Monty is now about three and a half feet long.)

Interesting side note: Monday or Tuesday of the last week of August, Monty escaped! He/she/(or it) actually broke the two latches on his cage and went... somewhere. We have no idea where. We knew (from seeing what would happen) that snakes can't climb our stairs (it's very funny to watch them try -- they get up a stair or two and then slide back down because the stairs are carpeted...they can learn to get up the stairs but we couldn't figure out why Monty would want go upstairs. There's nothing there of interest to snakes.) We put out a mouse trap (a trap containing a dead mouse. We put the mouse in a box with a hole in it big enough for a snake to enter. We punched a bunch of holes in the box to allow the enticing smell of the mouse to waft out into the house, and put that box inside another similarly holey box. The hole in the inner box faced away from the hole in the outer box. Under the box pair we put a heat pad and we warmed the whole device with a heat lamp. The theory was that the snake would find its way in by smell, but would be unable (or unwilling) to find its way out again). And then we waited. And waited. And waited. No Monty. We were starting to wonder how we would break it to the people who bought the house from us eventually, or how we would find it if it died somewhere in the walls and started to smell. Not fun.

Well, about eight days after we discovered it had escaped, Dan went into his office at home to do some work. He found the mouse on the floor (the computer's mouse) but figured he'd accidently knocked it off as he'd left for work that morning. Suddenly, while working on the wedding web site, he heard a noise above him. He glanced up and, to his surprise and joy, saw a snake head (not a snakehead) peeking down from the top shelf of his desk. We figure it's the tallest piece of furniture in the house, and we had read in numerous sites on the web that snakes like to find high places when they escape. We just never figured it'd find its way upstairs! We were ecstatic. It's terrible to lose a pet - we kept thinking we hadn't been good owners, that it had needed food or something and so had needed to escape. It was ridiculous, of course, but guilt is very powerful. Anyway, we put it in a very secure tupperware-like container, weighed down with big logs. The next day we bought a lovely cage for it from which it can't possibly escape. We're still wondering where it was for that week...we had checked EVERYWHERE.

Anyway, now it's safe to come over for dinner again...

We went to Petco. There, we found a nice terrarium, and also ended up going home with a very, very cute red-tailed boa constrictor. The boa was clearly named Argyle, and responded well to the name. Argyle is about two feet long.