When I started teaching, I looked around for animals I could keep in my classroom.  I had never owned any pets by myself before, and knew that mammals were not feasible in a classroom setting unless they came home every week end--a job I was not up to in my small apartment.
The first pet I purchased was a ribbon snake named Nathan.  I'm not sure why I named him that, but he was small and wiggly and every time we tried to hold him he peed on our arms.  Nathan ate gold fish, and every two weeks I would put several small fish in a tank and watch in fascination as he unhinged his jaw and swallowed them whole.  Later in the year, somebody donated a large goldfish named Mickey to our class, and Mickey sat far away from Nathan.  We were all attached to Mickey, and the paradox of a pet belonging to the same species as the snake's food was not lost on me.  One day, Nathan got out of his cage and ribboned his way down the hall and into several classrooms before he was caught.  It was interesting to note the varied reactions of students and teachers as they saw him moving forward--intense interest to absolute fear--and most of the fearful faces belonged to adults.  I wonder what experiences teach some of us to be deathly afraid of snakes or rats or mice, and others to love and nurture them?  I myself grow frozen and dysfunctional at the sight of even one cockroach, but can't think of where this phobia came from.  Nathan went to my then-boyfriend's (and later my husband's) house for the summer each year, but the third summer he once again escaped, and this time we could not find him anywhere.  We assumed the worst, and after grieving for a while stopped thinking about him as much.  Then, about three months later, we were sitting on the couch in my boyfriend's house, and I noticed what I thought was a stick on the floor.  After closer inspection, I saw that it was Nathan, stiff but alive.  We never discovered how he survived, especially since the house had three cats and two dogs running around, but he lived another two years after that.  I have to hope he enjoyed his adventures.
Next time:  Tree frogs and a chameleon.