miraculous escaping corn snake
This is probably a good place to tell you about my amazing snake.

About 5 years ago a friend was getting rid of his corn snake. As I've always wanted a snake I asked for him, and Huzzah! I became the happy keeper of a beautiful corn snake. He had a small scar from when My friend had lost him and found him with the hoover, but was lovely looking and having been brought up in a house with very small children was very tolerant.

A year or so later, we had to move house, and couldn't find a new one before we had to move out of the old one, so we went to stay with some people we knew,and put most of our stuff in storage. Three days after we got there, we returned to their house to discover smoke pouring out from under the floorboards in the living room. After wandering about for a bit trying to work out what was going on, we open the hall door to go upstairs and met with a wall of smoke. yup, their bloody house was on fire. We later found out the floor had collapsed over where we were wandering around shortly after we got out. Hurrah for not dying!

Among our clothes and other replaceable essentials, my snake was upstairs in his tank in our bedroom. the fire was upstairs. Arse. Not much I could do about it though.

After a few hours of worrying that the fire was our fault (it wasn't - woo!) and watching the firemen go in and out, the fire was vanquished. One of the firemen (in full kit) was nearly killed by the backdraft when he opened the door into our friends bedroom where the fire had been caused by a dodgy electrical socket sparking. The heat had been so intense it melted all her jewellery and stuff. My snake was in the next room. Again, arse.

Then a nice firelady asked whose the snake was. Sadly, I said he was mine, expecting to be shown a blackened crispy dead thing. She said she didn't really understand why, but he was OK. He was a bit brown and sticky (like a stick!) from the smoke, but he was otherwise fine. Still, 4 years on, when he sheds his skin (more often than he used to) there's always a brown smudge along the top of it. For a couple of days afterwards he was quite sluggish, so my guess is that he slowed down his breathing or some other reptilian trickery. I dunno.

2 years later he escaped. He had been prowling around his tank looking for a mate, refusing to eat anything for a few months, when he managed to prise the lid open and get out. The front door happened to be open, and he was gone by the time we realised. Arse!

A whole year later, I was coming in from the garden, when there he was! My wife came running because I bellowed 'SHIT!" so loudly she thought I was hurt. When she saw me with Rusty around my neck she was speechless. I should probably mention here that we live in the North Cornish countryside, in England. He'd survived a whole year, including a fairly harsh British winter. There were feathers in his poo, so he'd definately been hunting, etc. There had been an unconfirmed sighting of a corn snake over a mile away from us while he was gone. I like to think that was him. Now after another escape scare (kids left tank lid off, he got out but was under my daughters bed) he's curled up in his tank in my office.

So huzzah for my amazing cornsnake - he's survived fire, the English countryside, vacuum cleaners and small children.

Length? about 5ft now!
(teasus likes tea, Tue 13 May 2008, 10:52, 9 replies)

I love this story.
Nicely told, and had a snake in it.
I like snakes :)

My lizard once escaped, for a month or so.

I'd given up on her coming back, but woke up one night when I felt something crawling up my chest.

Creeped me the hell out until I realied it was her.
( Cawl, Tue 13 May 2008, 11:13, closed)

i too used to have snakes
my african rock python could happily submerse herself in water for 45mins or more - so they can certainly slow their metabolisim

heres my snake pearoast

» When Animals Attack

non existent snake attack
when i was a nipper i wasn't allowed any pets, my mum was a bit of a Hyacinth Bucket type. We were the only people on our council estate that had a 'cloak room' everyone else had a a 'loaby press' or hall cupboard to you.

So when i trotted off to college I shared a flat with two other long suffering blokes who were at best 'indifferent' to pets. i quickly turned into a veritable jonny morris - greatly encouraged by the future Mrs Spimf who bought me two kittens, then an aquarium then one fine day...

an Argentinean red tailed boa constrictor quickly followed by a Burmese python. i should stress that these creatures were docile to the point of dull and more importantly entirely NON venomous

in my final year Mrs Spimf and i were spending more time together and one of the flat-mates was getting on my tits so i got my own place (see my post : annoying spotty prick )

As i was moving in to my new flat this guy approached me, now allow me a moment to describe this bloke: dull green velour tight fitting long-sleeved top, black jogging pants tucked into boots. sideburns cut to a v shaped point. it took me all of two seconds to realise this bloke was dressed as captain kirk.

he shook my hand and proclaimed with great pride "hello, my names Chris and I'm an artist" for that my internal babel fish translated "hello. I'm your neighbor and I'm as mad as a fucking battenburg"

we got to know the chris 'the artist' a bit better and realized 'delusional piss artist' might have been a better moniker - but he seemed harmless enough. I should add the only time i ever saw him paint was when he had become a bit maudlin about his ex - got pissed and wrote in 8 foot high letters along our street (NAME OF EX BINT) I STILL LOVE YOU! he would come up for a beer and a chat now and then and was most interested in my snakes, who had got quite large by now - Coco the burmese python being around 7 feet long by now and as thick as your forearm, Basil the Boa a fair bit smaller. so not exactly 'monster snake man-eating size' we discussed at length that they were NON venomous which seemed to satisfy chris the artist particularly when i showed him some defrosted rats bought from the pet suppliers being fed to them.

Anyhoo one fine summers evening i was enjoying more than a few beers at home and mrs spimf decided to retire to bed. pissed and bored i decided to mist some water using a plant sprayer into the snake vivarium - which i had built myself, was as large as a chest freezer and had some nice smoked glass sliding doors.

next thing i know I'm coming round with this Chris 'the artist' standing over me with a huge fuck off hunting knife clutching an SAS Survival Handbook

"what the fuck are you doing in here and what the FUCK are you doing with that knife"

"looking for puncture wounds" he said quite calmly. I should point out i was also only wearing a pair of boxer shorts (warm summer evening) and was beginning to feel quite perturbed by events.

"WHAT!!!" what fucking puncture wounds?

then mrs spimf intervened

she had heard a loud thud and came in to find me out cold with the snakes nosing their slithery way out of the tank and over me. she gave me a shake and couldn't wake me so had panicked somewhat and decided to go and get "Chris the artists help".

I turns out somehow in my pissed up state i managed to get some water on the lighting or heating electrics and got a slight belt. however when i recoiled i must have battered my noggin on the edge of the vivarium and knocked myself out. (big bruise on forehead and shorted out lights in tank - sherlock)

so our self styled bohemian star trekking survivalist nutter of a neighbour - presumably who had long been prepared for such an emergency had sprung into action with a bloody rambo knife and some camouflage fetishists handbook open at the page on dealing with venomous snake bites.

like i say mad as a fucking battenburg
( spimf ™ is whoever you want him to be, Tue 13 May 2008, 11:22, closed)

@mistafeesh He seems like a badass ninja snake
I reckon you should fit him with a GPS tracking device and a miniature camera, and then drop him off in the countryside somewhere.

You could then follow his exploits as he hunts and stalks his prey, rambo-style.
( rofl harris, Tue 13 May 2008, 12:15, closed)

Cor...
Just looked up cornsnakes... they're lovely!

*wants snake*
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Tue 13 May 2008, 12:37, closed)

@ Enzyme
If you ever want serious advice about keeping pretty much any reptile, amphibian or invertebrate, gaz me.
( Cawl, Tue 13 May 2008, 12:39, closed)

Snaaaaaaaake!
My ex wife had a couple of Corn Snakes, they're surprisingly good pets. Hers were very used to being handled and would happily curl up round your shoulders while you did the ironing.

They're VERY good at escaping too.
(Bicycle Repairman "you're also a bit of a wanker", Tue 13 May 2008, 13:09, closed)

Juvenile humour
That was a lovely story, and I don't even like snakes.

Now for the juvenile humor bit - re-read the story, substituting "trouser" for "corn". Heheh. Especially the paragraphs beginning with "About 5 years ago" and "So huzzah".
(chase, Tue 13 May 2008, 20:19, closed)

Amazing!!!
What a great story! Although...quite hard to believe. But that's what makes it such a great story!
(BrainSurgerysFun, Tue 13 May 2008, 21:12, closed)

Mrgibbles, we've thought about it. He does rock... snakecam - David Attenborough should narrate the footage.

Chase - I am the happy owner of a trouser snake. Muhaha

I know it's hard to believe Brainsurgerysfun, but it's all true. Either that or I'm stuck in an asylum imagining my life (a la Hurley) or some such thing.
(teasus likes tea, Wed 14 May 2008, 9:08, closed)