Temptation…

Yergh.

I did it.

I went and looked at the East Bay Vivarium pricelist.

East Bay Vivarium, for those who don’t know, is the premier reptile shop in the Bay Area–they have lots of exotic snakes you won’t find in the average pet shop. (My ex, for example, was looking into purchasing a baby Mexican Beaded Lizard there–a smaller version of the Gila Monster, very rare, also venomous. I’d never heard of one for sale before.)

I went to their website wondering if they had an adult Brazilian rainbow male, as Rob still owes me one after killing Vulcan, my previous male. So I went off to their website, http://www.eastbayvivarium.com , and went paging through the pricelist just to see what they had.

Aack!

Snakes, you understand, are like popcorn: you can’t have just one. First you get a female, because it’s nifty-looking and you could maybe breed it and make back your money. Then, of course, you need a male to breed her to, and while you’re getting the male you might as well get another female (2 females = more babies). Around then you find out that this species breeds better if you have multiple males, so you get a second male, and if you’re going to have two males, you might as well have three or four females…

…Well. Now you understand how Rob and I wound up with twenty-one snakes.

I feel like an addict that’s been dropped into a pile of the stuff.

For example: Peruvian rainbow boas! They’re like Isis and Astarte (who are the Brazilian kind), except that Peruvians are BRIGHT RED–very beautiful in photos, I’ve never seen one in person. Thank goodness East Bay’s sold out of them. Otherwise, I guarantee you I’d get one. I don’t have room for another snake, but that has nothing to do with it. (Since when does that matter?) I love the Brazilians, a Peruvian would be fantastic, and you could maybe cross the Peruvian with a Brazilian to get a brighter-red snake. (Note the way in which snake-breeding is used as an excuse to get nearly anything.)

And they have Madagascan ground boas! Well, okay, they’re nothing much to look at, sort of a dull muddy brown with neat little blue-brown hourglasses along the sides, but damn! are they rare! and they are one of the very few snakes with blue in their coloration. The last one I saw (which was admittedly about ten years ago) was at a breeder’s convention, and the guy said he wouldn’t part with his (adult) female for less than $30K. And look, they’re down to a mere $650 ($1200 for a pair–I could breed them!).

Not to mention the Dumeril’s boas–Hestia really needs a mate, she’s so pretty she’d have fantastic babies…and whoa! a MADAGASCAN TREE BOA (bright orange! Incredibly beautiful! Never seen one in the flesh before!) for only $1500…

…this hobby can get expensive, fast.

I dunno. Some people collect miniatures. Some people collect sheep. Some people collect fiber. Me, I collect snakes.

So, I’m headed up to East Bay, and just praying I’ll come home with only ONE snake. But I dunno…they have Amazon tree boas, and some reputedly beautiful Kenyan sand boas…

I tell you, it’s really, really hard to keep one’s snake habit from getting out of hand.

Is there a “Snake-Collector’s Anonymous” somewhere?

Tien