Elusive the Snake

Okay, so maybe that wasn't his real name, but it's catchy and I don't have a clue what we actually called our first pet snake. Okay, only pet snake, that we didn't even have for very long, but we did have a pet snake.

Have you ever tried to catch a snake? It's much more difficult than you might think. First there is the fear factor. Snakes are scary no matter how small and harmless they are. They were harmless where I lived because there has never been a recorded poisonous snake on the island of New Britain. I couldn't help but wonder if I might be the first to discover one. Then there is what I call the 'slime' factor. They seem slimy even though they totally aren't. They're just slippery and hard to grab, and even if they're not poisonous, no one wants to be bit. Poisonous or not, a snake bite hurts! If you are in the jungle, like I was, then there are also lots of places for a snake to hide or to escape your attempts to catch it. None the less, my sis and I did indeed catch a small snake, in the jungle, without getting bit.

Elusive(or whatever we named him{or her, for that matter}), the snake, was about two feet long and green all over. We carried our prize home ever so carefully and placed him in a small screen cage we used for transporting our cat. Our only dilemma was what to feed our new slimy friend. We really had no idea what a snake might enjoy eating. We pondered and argued and eventually agreed that our Elusive might enjoy some spiders, at least as a snack till we could fine something more substantial. We knew just where to find a large number of what we called X spiders(these spiders wove a neat little X at the center of there webs). After collecting several fine specimens we placed them in the cage with our friend Elusive. We kept them alive of course, in order that they would remain fresh till Elusive was ready to dine.

The next day we discovered Elusive dead in his(or her) cage and all the spiders quite alive and well. Apparently the X spider is more than capable of killing a snake. We began to wonder if they might be able to kill a human too. We decided we wouldn't play with X spiders anymore. There were several different type of poisonous spiders on our island, thought we didn't know which they were. We did know that the X spider seemed to be one of them. This lesson we learned the hard way.

Just another one of the many pets that fell to the curse...