Friday was a difficult day.
The problems actually started on Wednesday when Ardy wouldn’t eat.
We are house-sitting for friends in Berkeley - for the pedants, our friends are in France, their house is in Berkeley - and Ardy is temporarily staying here as well.
We didn’t expect to have anything to do with Ardy during our stay. We have met him before and are on nodding, good-morning-to-you terms, but nothing more, and expected him to just camp out in the living room and not trouble us. Until Ardy’s owner texted us from France and said omg I forgot to feed Ardy before I left he hasn’t eaten in four weeks can you plz here is how. Followed by instructions on defrosting the last frozen rat in the freezer, warming it in boiled water, patting it dry, and appropriately presenting it at 7 pm when Ardy is most
active .
So on Wednesday evening we presented Ardy with the brown-and-white rat which we found in the freezer, snuggled up to our our ice cream, and which Ardy would not eat. Nor would he eat it Wednesday night. On Thursday morning I put the rat in the green compost bin, went to the vivarium, purchased a frozen white rat, which on Thursday evening Ardy would not eat.
On Friday morning I got up early to watch the Tour de France while I worked. July 14th, Bastille Day, is a special stage of the Tour, as French riders throw themselves up the road in petillant attacks for the glory of France before being figuratively trampled by literally every other country.
First, to see if Ardy ate the white rat during the night. No, the rat is still in Ardy’s tank. Ardy is not.
I immediately carried out the General Emergency Protocol:
1. Stabilize. I closed all the windows.
2. Investigate. Figure how he escaped.
3. Call France.
Ardy’s owner, by Facetime from France, and I searched under, in, and through everywhere a snake might be. Which is, anywhere. Her last snake got lost in the house for four months.
Luckily, Ardy’s owner’s parental units told me, also by Facetime from France, the surefire way to lure a hiding snake. They’d learned this in month five. You parade around the house with a live rat in a small cage, put the rat in the snake’s tank, and the snake “smells the rat and comes running. 10 minutes, tops.”
My biggest fear was that Ardy had found an open window. I posted not-quite-truthful Lost Snake signs on the block, then returned to the vivarium for the third feeder rat. This one was alive, dark gray with white paws and a white tail tip, a little smaller than the frozen rats, but not a mouse or a baby rat. The tattoo’ed staff informed me that “my” snake was used to eating rats so a mouse wouldn’t smell right, and a baby rat might not live long enough even with a water dish and rat food in the tank. Luring the snake out of hiding would take a week. He would come at night. It might take weeks. No, definitely not ten minutes. Where did you hear that?
A week was bad, because France had asked me to keep their little dog Bastien close at all times while Ardy was on the loose. There seemed to be a range of opinion in that family. From a four or five foot python definitely won’t strangle and eat a small, elderly, sleeping dog to he definitely can and will. Nothing about sleeping people.
Friday midday, my daughter met the rat and immediately named it, before tearfully parading the rat around the house. With the rat in the tank, provisioned with water, Acme baguette, and sliced peaches, we sat down to wait for ten minutes. Three hours later, the rat was still enjoying lunch and we were hungry. I left Bastien protectively locked in the bathroom, so that I could worry for the next three hours if I’d checked in the bathtub, and left the rat in the snake’s tank, so my daughter could worry for the next three hours if Algernon was being eaten.
When we returned, a tiny bit of python was peeking out from under a cabinet. A great victory on Bastille day. A Polish rider won the stage, but France rejoiced.
After re-assembling the cabinet, we had, and currently have, another problem. What to do with the unmolested rat?
Choices
1. Place rat back in snake’s tank.
2. Return rat to vivarium’s tub of feeder rats.
3. Other.