First off I want to say I know this was horrible, cruel, and just plain mean, but hey the professor told me to do it. Anyway, here's the story.

One of our professors has been having a lot of trouble out of one of his freshmen classes text messaging during class. Right before his class started (everyone was in there but him) I had one of our red tail boas out (7 foot 4, 17 or so pounds). I was standing right out side the room he was heading into. When he saw me i could tell he had something in mind. He told me to open the door, and walk in to the room, unannounced with that snake around my shoulders. After making sure he was serious, I did. The girl seated closest to the door (still probably 10 feet away) looked up as the door creaked, saw the snake, jumped up screaming and ran to the back of the room. When she screamed several others looked up, saw the snake, and got that jaw dropped white as a ghost oh my god its gonna eat me look on their face. That has got to be the most priceless look i have ever seen, and there was a room full of them. After the initial shock the professor came in and told them the next one of them he caught with a phone out in class would have to hold it. After that we discussed the snake a little bit, maximum size, natural habitat, that type of stuff. Some people came up for a closer look and wanted to pet it and others had that look that if i made one step in their direction they were gonna set a new land speed record. I would say most of them had never seen a snake that size other than behind glass, so despite scaring the crap out of a few of them i think over all it was a good learning experience for most of them. That's part of what i like so much about working with the snakes there is letting people get a better look at them outside their cages and realize they aren't the vicious killers many people think them to be. Sorry for such a long post, I just thought it might give you all a good laugh.