Lisa?!

So the snake’s name is Lisa. I’m not sure how this came about. It doesn’t sound very “snakey”. My wife insists it is short for “Mona Lisa”. I’m not sure how that relates either. When I hear anyone say something about Lisa, I start thinking that the doll-turned-into-a-woman from Weird Science is now living in my house. Now that would be a whole different level of birthday present.

Naming aside, we did feed “Lisa” her first meal under our roof this weekend. Ummmm! Rat! Now for the uneducated, let me explain. First you buy a frozen rat from Petsmart. Then you thaw it (it seems like forever) in warm water – in the garage of course – in biodegradable containers designed to never be seen again because who wants to fathom touching something that a rat spend all day in, trying to return to some form of life-like flexibility. Girls! Hello! We own a snake now!

Anyway, Lisa is FAST. So fast in fact, that I threw the rat into her feeding aquarium with her and before I could say, “Bon Appetit!”, BAM! The scene looked like this:

Snake 1. Rat 0.

Lisa spent 3 hours working on this rat. Yes, three. She eats like Europeans. One hour to constrict dinner until it was good and dead (Shhh! She doesn’t know it was already dead). Then, another 2 hours to swallow the rat, tail first. I missed a photo of the final scene (we’ll get it next time), but it was quite hilarious to see this snake with white whiskers hanging out of the side of its mouth and a big lump behind her head.

Now, don’t be surprised here, but everyone in the family took ringside seats for this feeding. Yes, even the soft feminine side of the house was up for a little Faces of Death action. However, at the end of the 3 hour event, Elizabeth summed it up for that side of the house when she said, “Well, I don’t need to watch that again.”