I got my first snake when I was 10 in the summer of '97. He is a normal ball and will be 13 this summer :3 So I've owned them for 13 years so far.

I didn't even get another snake until '07, and that's when I got my female hog island boa and male albino boa. They were a trade off for the fact that my mom wanted to keep the bp at her house when I moved away since she had fallen in love with him too. I took pity on the whole empty nest syndrome thing and let her keep him, no matter how much I wish I could still see him. But having the boas has definitely made it easier. So I didn't have to go without any snakes at all, that would have been a very sad time.