with a happy ending!

A couple weeks ago, my mom came to visit. Knowing of my love for cold-blooded creatures (my snakes, not my wife!), my python-regius-a-phobic mother made me promise that during the two days she was here, I would not take the snakes out at all. I agreed, cause the kids wanted to see grandma.
The day she got here, I finished building my new snake rack, and had just gotten all the critters moved in when she arrived. We had a great day, and the kids were very happy to be able to visit and play with grandma. After grandma and the kids went to sleep in the living room, I went into my bedroom/snakeroom to feed my other children(cold-blooded ones), and watch some Sci-Fi channel. When I went to feed Zeus, my '03 possible possible het piebald, it occurred to me, "Wow, Zeus might be easier to feed if he was in his container!" :shock:
11pm, python-regius-a-phobic mom sleeping in the living room with three grandkids on the floor, wife asleep, dog locked up, and me with my flashlight......looking EVERYWHERE!

I wasn't worried about not finding him. I knew I would find him eventually. If I didn't find him before morning, it was just a matter of whether I was going to find him flying through the air after my mom found him, or if a kid was going to bring him to me in the middle of the night and say, "Here, daddy, Zeus was sleeping with me."

Ever called your snake? I have. Desperation does strange things to a man's psyche! "Zeuuuuuuuusss.....where are you?"

I had put the new snake rack right next to the door to the room where I keep my breeding rats. I was hoping he went in there looking for an easy meal, but the floor is linoleum, and it was cooooooold! Didn't find him there, or in my bedroom. I actually managed to take all the drawers out of the dresser without waking the wife! I checked under the fridge and stove without waking mom and the kids, too. Then I remembered a post I read by a carpenter. He said that there is a gap under the cabinet in most bathroom cabinet fixtures where a snake could get under the cabinet easily. I looked, and sure enough, there was a gap, but it was in a place that I could not see into the "crawlspace" under the cabinet. I went into the other bathroom and checked, and that cabinet had a space, too. By this point, I was pretty sure he had to be in one of those spots, because I had pretty much quietly torn the house apart, other than those two spots.
I went back into my bedroom, and was going to start seeing what tools I would need to pry the cabinet off the floor, when I saw the little.................snake.......slithering out from under the cabinet, heading for the toilet. *&$#@! I waited until he was all the way out, so he couldn't pull back inside, and then scooped the freezing guy up.
He ate a good sized rat about 45 minutes later, so I chalked it up to experience.
Needless to say, the gap between the top of the rubbermaid and the ceiling was too big!

The wife thought it was funny when I told her the next day. Mom was not amused when I told her two days after she left! :shock: