No, bigger than that...
Nope, even larger...
Ah! Yes! The Burmese Python!
I kid you not! This is the snake that bit me. Granted, it was a little smaller than this, but then, again, so was I. Three feet to be exact. You see, as a child, being dragged around town, so my mother could could run her errands, I got bored. My mother knew this too, so every once in a while, if there was time, she'd take me to the pet store. I absolutely loved this! It was like a free mini petting zoo to me. My favorite were the ferrets. Those feisty little things! Well, it was one of those days that I got to go to the petting zoo pet store and the animals I had to visit first, were those slinky fur balls!
I think I spent a good fifteen minutes petting, grabbing, and poking the critters before I moved on to the more boring pets like the hamsters and mice (they weren't as playful). After a while of doing that, I pretty much had laid my hands on every furry creature in the building. My mother suddenly showed up behind me, with this excited expression. "Hey Amy! Would you like to see a big snake?!". 'Hells yeah!' I thought, though in more of a young child's lingo. She took me around the corner to the reptile section of the store and there, waiting for me, was a tall man with a humongous snake wrapped around his body. I couldn't believe my eyes. For a weird kid like me, this was a dream come true. The man asked, "Would you like to pet him?" I wasn't sure at first. It was sure a cool snake but it didn't look friendly or playful, but still curiosity consumed me. I looked up at my mother to see if it was okay. "Go ahead! It won't bite you." We both walked up to the snake and started feeling it's skin. Now, if you have never felt a snake's skin before, I'll tell you right now that they're not slimy like some people think. It's smooth and shiny like...well, you know, smooth and shiny things. For a first time experience, it was amazing to me. I actually do think, that for that short time, I was in love. It must have put a spell on me because I did not want to part from this amazing creature and as my mother chatted up the pet store employee, I sneaked around the man's back, following the snake's head. I wanted to show affection towards the snake as any child would a cat. I knew my cat loved it when I scratched him under the chin, so why would this python be any different.
All animals love being scratched under the chin!
And here came my lesson for the day. As I gently stroked the snake under it's head, not even a second after, I found my thumb caught in it's mouth. Never in my life have I drawn so much attention to myself as I did that day. My mother and the employee caught on pretty quickly and started to try to pull the snake away from my hand. That snake was not going to give give up that easily though. He finally let go after a few excruciating seconds, but he was not done there. If he couldn't have a piece of me, then he would just have to settle with the next best thing. My mother. My poor poor mother (sigh). After my mother's hand was removed from the snake's mouth, another employee took me to the bathroom to clean my wound. I looked down and saw that quite a bit of blood had dripped on to my new, white sneakers. This was just not my day. My thumb was stinging like crazy, my throat was sore from screaming, and my favorite sneakers were ruined. "Stupid snake!" I whined. The man, who was helping me wash up, shook his head and said, "No it's not stupid, just blind. He's only a baby, actually. He probably confused your fingers for a rat or something, but I understand how you feel." Oh my God! It was a blind baby! It all makes sense now! It never occurred to me that the snake could smell the other animals' odors from my hand. I felt bad then, for causing such a fuss. After both my mother and I got all bandaged up, we went home and told my dad about our little adventure with the exotic animal.
Wait! What?
Anyway, I learned my lesson. It is not a good idea to treat any animal, you don't know, like a kitty, because sometimes, they're nothing like kitties and (even worse) they're blind.
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