Meet the Hubbard’s Housetrained Pet Snake?
Firstly, I may have told a small white lie. The snake isn’t exactly house-trained. Well, not house-trained in the way that a Dog is. Our dear Rufio is house-trained in the respect that, well, (to the horror of all my friends) he lives life slithering freely around the house. This unfortunately includes him excreting freely around the house also - and thank the Lord that for snakes, this is only a once a week business.
I appear to have slipped his name in already: Rufio! Recognise it? Yes, it is from the legendary film Hook. Rufio joined the Hubbard household as a Christmas present to my Brother one year when he was about twelve, so I was about ten, and the sister nine. These are the peak ages for the enjoyment of Hook and the three of us were obsessed with it at the time. Thus, we decided to name the new family addition after that Japanese raggamuffin because he was cool and smooth, just like our new pet. Also, it meant we could chant, just like the lost boys, RUFIO, RUFIO, RU – FI -OOOoooo, with some kind of justification.
My brother quickly learnt that his Christmas present didn’t particularly do much. It mainly lay still, slithered around occasionally and poked it’s forked tongue out monotonously. Still, at 12 years old, the mere ownage of a snake makes you cool right? Especially when it is bright orange…but not so especially when it’s a corn snake…Mother would not allow a python (Thank God!) Nevertheless, despite Rufios, urm, submissive character lets say, he has been interesting enough over the years to inspire this blog!
As I mentioned earlier, Rufio, although has a cage, generally lives around the house. This is because my Mother, bless her damned compassion, thinks that it is cruel to leave a snake cooped up in a cage. Fair point Mum. But, seriously, a snake living around the house!? Not cool when I’m fifteen, having a sleepover, and my friends are freaking out that an orange reptile might poke its head out of their sleeping bag in the morning….You think they are overreacting? My sister one night was awoken by a cold smooth sensation on her leg…yes, the snake had got into bed with the poor girl. Hm, maybe I should have refrained from telling my friends that story until the morning.
Have you ever seen a snake have its dinner? If not, youtube it right now. Pet snakes are fed dead mice. This means that we have frozen mice in the bottom drawer of the freezer, and once a month you will find on our kitchen table a semi-frozen mouse emerged in a bowl of warm water awaiting it’s fate. Snakes enjoy swallowing their meal in one whole piece. Considering that the mice we feed Rufio are about 8 times larger than his thumb sized head, a dislocation of the jaw is required. So, charming Rufio, after sniffing out his food (which can take a long time-snakes are not the brainiest of creatures), dislocates his jaw and launches at the thing, gets a good grip and then gradually uses its muscles to simultaneously crush the food and push it deeper into the digestive tract, where it is broken down. Lovely. For Rufio, this is usually quite an interesting yet clean process. Well, I say usually, there was a one off…Of course, this ‘one off’ had to happen when the snake was being watched by a friend when we were abroad…A friend of my father who had two very young boys….Pete (the friend) fed the snake in front of his boys- a nice bit of cool biology for the boys I’m sure he thought. Not so cool when this time, as the snake plunged upon the mouse, the mouse, um, well basically exploded. Exploded, splattering blood and guts all over the glass walls of its cage….Pete hasn’t offered to look after the snake since…
Another story I have to tell happened within the Hubbard’s walls. It horrified me at the time, and now on reflection has me in hysterics. It was an average day. A rather hot day in fact. Me and Mother were indoors, she was going around the house opening the windows, doing a spot of tidying, whilst I was scrounging some pennies together to hit the corner shop and buy myself a Fab! After scrounging 50p I stepped outside to make my journey to Cost-cutters. Halfway down the drive, something out the corner of my eye stopped caused me to and turn back around…something orange… Rufio, the rascal, was hanging out of the top bedroom window. His whole 6ft long stripey orange body, straight and fully extended, minus one inch of his tail which was desperately gripping onto the window ledge. How I was horrified. Six foot of long skinny slithering orangeness dangling from out of window must have looked completely obscene to the neighbours. Oh dear, oh dear. We postponed Rufio’s great escape, and saved him before he plunged to his potential death on our front garden patio. Thank the yummy juiciness of Fab’s I say.
This blog so far seems to have involved me horrifying you with snake stories and making my family sound nuts. Well, I can assure you now the Hubbard’s are not weird, just made a silly decision one year to give in to a troublesome 12 year olds demands without looking into the average life expectancy of a snake. (It’s 23 years! Looks like the snake will be living under my parents roof longer than me!) Also, although I have made out that snakes poop everywhere, mutilate mice, and are goddamn boring, I do like our Rufio. Alot of people are scared of snakes, but they are not slimey like people think, neither are they quick or vicious. In fact, they are beautifully smooth to touch, laid-back, peaceful creatures. Rufio is in fact rather cute, his tiny little head, with that little tongue poking out at you! They are not the most thrilling of creatures, but absolutely not the worst of creatures either. They need barley any care, are clean, do not smell, and, well they certainly bring a few humourous stories to a household!
At twenty years of age I’m not really into my sleep overs anymore, we try not to open the upstairs windows unless absoloutley neccesary, and im sure, somewhere, there is a crazy american snake lover who has invented snake dypers? With these problems sorted I can proudly chant: Rufio, Rufio, Ru-fi-ooooooooooo….
Please check out my blog: http://checka.tumblr.com/ Here, my dear brave readers you can read my cynical (most of the time), humorous, (or so I like to think) and thoughful reflections on the pains and pleasantries of day to day life. If your lucky, i’l wack a bit of variety in here and there, such as short anecdotes, cultural reviews, personal experiences, and lot’s of hearty rants.
All I ask is that you forgive my hideous grammar and the gradual reveation that I am a disorganised, indecisivie and strange waffler.
Aside the above crap, I am doing this because I genuinely enjoy writing about my thoughts, -it’s priceless theropy, (please note: im not mentally unstable) and I hope, as an aspiring journalist, that blogging helps me learn and grow and so step even closer towards that dream career. That is why people like you who take the time to read what I have done are AMAZING and part of those stepping stones!
A philosophical quote about the meaning of life seems an appropriate way to end this introduction…fittingly the one that inspired my blog title:
‘Life is like a cobweb, not an organization chart.’ – (Ross Perot).
Ah yes Mr. Perot, let life be improvised; let it grow and develop as we learn, change our minds, and do not fear spontaneity, change of direction, or our artistic licence.
Checka.x.
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