Meet Elvis. Elvis is a corn snake and he lives in our house. Everytime he holds the snake, Jack snuggles him (her?) close and whispers, “I love you Elvis.”
Of all the WONDERFUL things Kevin has ever done, this is NOT one of them. We don’t even remember why, but months ago Kevin promised Jack that he could get a snake, as an incentive for something or other. Of course no one remembers exactly what the bribe was for. However, Jack never forgot that he was promised a snake.
Elvis is about three months old, and will live for 20 or 30 more years. Apparently, Jack plans to take Elvis to college with him. Elvis must eat a live mouse each week (according to the “Exotic Pet Store” guy, you put the tiny baby mouse and the snake in a little brown paper sack and let the snake have at it. It takes too much energy for the baby snake to chase the baby mouse around terrarium. Jack says he going to open the sack and watch).
The temperature of Elvis’s environment must be constantly monitored (not more than 86 degrees daytime, not less than 80 degrees nighttime). He lives in Jack and Owen’s room.
At the moment, Elvis is about as fat as a pencil and maybe 14″ long. Molly hasn’t noticed him yet, nor has Fiona, but I’m sure the both of them will view him as a snack.
To keep things fair, Owen was given the opportunity to get a hamster, lizard or snake as a pet, or go to Toys ‘R Us to pick out a new toy. (Thanks to all the guiding forces in the universe), Owen chose to get a toy, not an animal.
Please join me in welcoming Elvis to our family and fervently wishing he never gets lost in the house and I have to say, “Elvis has left the building.”
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