Sunday18th May 2008 disaster.

Friday 16th May 2008.

Today has been one of my worst in a long time. It’s had its ups and downs as most days in my mixed up life do, but it culminated it tragedy and I’m devastated. I can’t begin to tell you how upset I am.

But first the day began with irritation. Russ went to his concert in Manchester last night. He rang this morning and I asked him what time he would be home as I had to take Stoker to the vets at three.

Daz is busy and couldn’t cover me at the shop, so I had to just sneak out for the vets and hope that the cameras don’t catch me. If I have an emergency, or, yes, I admit it, occasionally if I just need to do some urgent shopping I do shut the shop and sneak out … but I hate doing it. If I got caught I’d argue up a bloody good case. I’m stuck in this damned coffin all day and never take a break. Sometimes I don’t cross the doors from eight thirty in the morning until five to eight at night. I even get Daz in on a Monday so that the shop isn’t locked while I do the banking. I think I’m pretty shit-hot on loyalty and that if I got caught shutting shop for an hour to take my sick snake to the vets I’m pretty sure that I could talk myself out of any trouble.

However for every minute that my shop is locked and customers can’t get in, I’m potentially losing custom. What if the same customer came back several times on different occasions and just happened to find the door locked? It wouldn’t be long before he’d think, to hell with this, I’ll take my custom elsewhere. For this reason I hate my shop being shut.

So I was irritated to hell when Russ said that he’d decided to make a day of it and get a later train back than he’d originally intended. I’d told him before he went that I was stuck for help in getting Stoker to the vets and it wouldn’t have killed him to get a lunchtime train home which would have got him back in good time to help me out at three.

As it happened Marty had the day off work and was very reluctantly roped in to help me. I know these are my animals and that the lads are always monk-chanting at me, “You got them, you look after them.” And although Marty is pretty close to completely useless, Russ is very good and really does do a lot more to help than I ask him to. He’ll often do waters and sprays for me while I’m at work so that I don’t have to do them when I get home.

Marty whinged and whined and had to be seriously bribed to agree to meet me at the vets with Stoker. The vets is half way between my shop and home so this saved me a considerable amount of time carting him backwards and forwards. To be honest I think Russ possibly crawled out of helping me on purpose. My initial thought was that he was being very selfish and thinking only of himself … but I think it’s far more likely that he was too scared of picking Stoker out of his viv when there was nobody else at home. He’s a big snake and can be a bit hissy when you invade his territory, though he’s as gentle as a lamb when you actually handle him.

I got there five minutes late. I hadn’t had a customer for about an hour before, but of course the second that I prepared to lock up a couple walked in and stayed for almost half an hour. I couldn’t ask them to leave and was in a right panic by the time they did buy what they wanted.

Stoker had already been weighed when I got there and we were taken straight into the treatment suite. Les, and I debated about sedating Stoker to perform the enema. She was for it I felt that it was unnecessary to knock him out. I’ve done enemas at the sanctuary before which I couldn’t have done if the snakes had to be anaesthetised. The main danger of performing an enema is that if the snake is struggling their reproductive organs can be damaged. Les asked me if Stoker was insured because she was worried about his worth. I have never looked up his book price and if I’d had to put a price on his head I’d have aid that he was worth between about five and six hundred. I was delighted to learn that his book price is sixteen hundred pounds. I only paid a fraction of that for him.

We decided to give it a go and see how we got on and make decisions on a minute-to-minute basis. Les admitted that she’d never performed an enema on a snake before and she hinted that she’d be happier if I did the actual catheterising and then if any damage occurred the blame would be mine. In the end after much debate we decided to have the brawn at the end that could cause trouble. Both Les and the assisting nurse are only slight and four stone of angry python who is pure muscle can put up one hell of a fight if he has a mind to.

Marty, deciding that his super-hero power had discharged, told us in no uncertain terms that he was standing with is back against the door ready to make a run for it if Stoker got loose. I took my place at the biting end, Les brought up the business end and the young lass who looked terrified just about ended up climbing on top of Stokes to hold his middle bits still. Holding Stoker in a head lock is a two-handed job now due to his girth. I took my time making sure that I had a firm and secure grip on him and Les went to work with the catheter. Stoker struggled like hell, but I have to say that on the whole he was very good and didn’t hold the pain and indignity that we inflicted on him against us. It took several attempts to get the catheter in position. Stoker, feeling pressure on his cloaca did what any self respecting snake would do when his bits and bobs are being man-handled, he clenched his formidable sphincter muscles and it was like trying to pass a straw through concrete.

Things haven’t progressed with any wondrous newly evolved products while I have been out of the game and when it comes to poo producing a bucket of warm water with half a bottle of sex-lube stirred into it made up the magic recipe. It was like a busman’s holiday when the lube came out.

The next bit of the procedure was easy. Les loaded up three fifty-mil syringes attached them in turn onto the end of the catheter tube and injected the fluid into Stoker’s nether regions, massaging his lower third between each one. “There,” she said lowering Stoker’s tail and straightening up. She looked very pleased with herself. “That ought to do it. What do you think?”

“Hhhmm, well he’s quite big and there’s a heck of a lot of rocks in there, maybe just one more for luck?” I replied.

“Okay.” It was clear that we were both winging it and neither of us had a clue how much to pour into him. Les was probably wondering how many fifty mil syringes you can squirt up sixteen hundred quid’s worth of snake’s bum before he explodes.

She loaded the syringe, picked up Stoker’s tail, positioned it just below eye level and moved in to attach the end of the catheter to the syringe casing. Suddenly the tube flew out of Stoker’s backside and hit her in the chest, immediately followed by half a bucket of fluid and shit. She actually screamed with surprise and dropped the tail onto the table. I had been about to ask how long she thought it would take to work, well I guess that question was redundant.

“Oooooh, fantastic,” I yelled. I was so happy and pleased that Stoker was going to be all right, in fact I was so ecstatic that I didn’t even laugh at the state of Les, not so Marty and the nurse who were hysterical. Les was absolutely covered, the table was covered, the floor was covered. I was glad I’d opted for the clean end especially as I had to go back to work and Les smelling of a snake’s insides for the remainder of her day was more or less acceptable, but in my line of work it and given that I have no windows in my shop it would have been frowned upon.

Stoker was straining hard to continue his mass purge. Les massaged his colon. I couldn’t believe what that snake passed. Over the next few seconds he got rid of three rocks of urinates the size of pint glasses. He must have been in agony and I knew I’d done the right thing taking him because he’d never have got rid of those by himself.

After the initial explosion Marty had been too busy laughing to react to what was happing but after a few seconds the smell wafted up from the mess. Now personally, I don’t find the smell of snake faeces that offensive. I think it’s one of the better smelling poos and I don’t think it’s anywhere near as offensive as dog, cat or even human poo. It has a very distinctive odour that I’ve become completely immune to over the years. Now snake vomit is probably one of the most obnoxious smells on the planet. Imagine a half digested rat, mixed with stomach acid and bile, usually deposited under spotlights when you’re not looking (thank God) and left to ferment until it virtually bubbles.

Because I don’t think snake poo is that bad I was surprised when I saw Les looking over towards the door and asking, “Are you all right? Do you want a drink of water? I looked at Mark who had stopped laughing very suddenly. He was holding onto the edge of a unit and trying to remain on his feet. His face was deathly white with two bright spots of vivid red colour in the middle of his cheeks. His eyes were watering and I looked over just in time to see his eyes roll back into his head. My son was passing out and I had hold of a struggling python who’s greatest desire at that moment was to inflict pain and suffering on any human being within reach. I couldn’t let go off him.

Les left the Table and supported Marty, leaving the nurse and I to continue our wrestling match with Stoker who sensed that the opposition had just become weaker and doubled his efforts to break free. This caused him to loose another torrent of toxic waste on the room in general. Marty didn’t actually lose consciousness, or if he did it was only for a split second because he remained upright. I was battling my own demons. I still had Stoker in a headlock and needed to get him cleaned up and chucked back into his snake carrier quickly. I was terrified that Marty was going to follow his swoon with a vomit and there was no way that I could be shut in a room with that going on.

Luckily, Marty went outside to get some fresh air and we were able to secure the snake and clean up all the mess. Les was beaming, she had snake shit all over her white coat, in her hair, on her face and dripping from her hands. Her hair had come out of its neat pony tail and hung all over her hot, sweaty face but she was grinning like a loon. As we were walking through to reception where I’d have to do the painful bit of paying up, she said, “I really enjoyed that. That’s my first ever snake enema and made a real change from dogs and cats.” Charming, she got an hour of fun and frolic and I had to pay through for the nose for it. She could have given me a discount seeing as she enjoyed it so much.

I now know the financial value of a bucketful of snake crap. Ounce for ounce it probably tallies with gold or crude oil. It was possibly the dearest crap in history and puts a whole new spin on the phrase ‘to spend a penny’. It cost me sixty-three pounds just for my snake to empty his bowels.

Well I’m certainly in the right place to lay my hands on sex lube. Crickey, even if I bought our dearest bottle at twenty pounds a time it’d still save me a fortune, so next time I’m going to do the job myself. I don’t know what I’ll do for helpers to hold the beast, but I’m not paying that again.

Hopefully I won’t have to as from now on I’m going to be taking preventative measures. I’m going to inject each rat with ten mils of liquid paraffin before I feed them to him. I had a lesson to learn from that as well. I bought a twenty-five mil bottle from the vet at a cost of twelve pounds. Super Drug do a hundred and fifty mils for one pound twenty nine.

All in all it was a good result and Stoker and I both came away pounds lighter.

I was in a good mood when I got home from work. Even seeing Jessy and Nigel sitting in their car waiting for me to put my key in the lock didn’t bring me down. I was irritated to see that they’d brought yet another mate with them to see the animals. Hell, I might as well sell tickets. I invited them in (reluctantly) and told them that they’d have to bear with me while I did waters, sprays and evening checks.

My first job when I walk into the house at night before I’ve had a coffee or anything is to check on every viv. I go round saying hello to everybody and just looking to see that they are all okay. I began this automatically before I’d even taken my jacket off or put the kettle on to boil.

“Hiya Isa, how’s it going love? Bali, get your foot out of Tanimbah’s eye. No, Shang you can’t come out just yet, give me five minutes and then I’ll open up.” It was just like every other night until I got to the uro’s viv.

“Now then Giza what are you doing under there? You daft lizard come on, you look dead lying like that. Giza… Giza… Gi?”

Giza was lying half under the heavy Buddha ornament in his viv. I grabbed him and pulled him out, but he didn’t move.

Jess had taken it upon herself to walk this latest person around the vivs and was giving him an ‘expert’ lecture on each of the animals. I wanted to scream at them all to just get out and leave me alone.

I took Giza’s lifeless body into the kitchen where I could be on my own and checked him over. I still wasn’t sure if he was alive or dead but I knew at this point that if he was still alive, it was barely.

There is a saying connected to the death of reptiles and that is ‘never assume that they are dead until they haven’t moved for twenty years.’ A reptile can slow its heart rate and metabolism so that they look to all intents and purposes dead when they aren’t. I laid Giza on the palm of my hand. His neck didn’t look right it was kind of sticking up and across a bit. I could plainly see that my lizard had broken his neck. Jess, Nigel and this other bloke had followed me out into the kitchen.

“What’s wrong? Is there something wrong with that lizard?” said Jessy.

“Ooh it doesn’t look right good, does it,” added Nigel.

The other bloke didn’t say anything; he just stood there staring. I wanted privacy. I wanted to break my heart. I was almost certain that Giza was dead. I didn’t answer them.

I flung Giza onto my kitchen unit without thought to food preparation or of being gentle with him. Rushing over to my cupboards and flinging open doors I picked out a metal tinfoil (but thicker) packaging tin that I’d bought a joint of meat in and had kept for an animal container. I hastily ran the tap until it was warm and filled the tin. Half way back from the sink I realised that the bloody thing had breathing holes in it so that the meat didn’t sweat. Water was spraying out of the bottom as if from a watering can. In temper I swore and hurled it, water and all, across the kitchen. Although it didn’t land anywhere near the dog she yelped, thrust her tail between her legs and scarpered upstairs to bed.

“Is it dead,” asked both Jessy and Nigel at three-second intervals. I don’t think they were referring to the dog and either way I couldn’t be bothered to answer them. I just wanted them to leave.

I grabbed the first thing I came to in the cupboard; an earthenware oven dish and I didn’t even give a passing thought to hygiene. I filled it and thrust Giza into it, holding his head below the water.”

“Oh look, she’s going to cook it,” said Nigel who thinks he’s a bit of a comedian.

“Yummy,” Jessy leapt on the comedy bus but forgot to buy a ticket, “roast lizard for tea.” They both laughed.

“Hang on,” continued Nigel, and this time I don’t know if he was trying to be funny or not. “She’s drowning it first. What are you doing, Jane, can it breathe under there?”

The young man who hadn’t said a word since he’d introduced himself asked if he could do anything to help. He wasn’t laughing and joking around and if I’d taken the time to look I’d probably have seen that he was concerned. Other than throwing a fleeting side glare at him I completely ignored him.

After two minutes I lifted Giza gently out of the water. There had been no air bubbles. His eyes were closed, I prized them open and the pupils were fixed and glassy. I flexed and bent his foot and pinched the skin on his pad to check for reflex reaction there was nothing and there was no pulse visible at his jugular. I was ninety percent sure that Giza was dead.

I put him on a piece of clean kitchen roll and laid him on top of one of the vivs where I left him for the following twenty four hours to be absolutely certain that he’d gone. I already knew that he had.

Jessy made everybody a brew. I should have been grateful for that but I wasn’t. I didn’t give a damn if they had a drink or not. I just wanted to be left alone to grieve. I sat on the sofa dry eyed and silent. I wanted to ring Russ to tell him what had happened. I don’t know why I wanted to talk to him because tea and sympathy isn’t one of his strong points. He doesn’t handle emotional stuff well; he’s more of a practical bod. He’s good at solutions to problems finding but not much cop at the shoulder to cry on stuff. I had no credit on my mobile. Marty had run up a massive phone bill again and I’ve had my landline switched to incoming calls only. I felt as though I might well scream with sheer anger, and frustration and the feeling of waste and loss. I don’t think I could have made my guests feel any more unwelcome if I’d tried, but they didn’t take the hint and leave.

Nigel kept he same joke going for over an hour, “Is that one okay, it’s not moving, it’s not dead as well, is it?” and then five minutes later he’d point to another one, “Is that one okay, it’s not moving.”

I wanted to tell him to fuck off, but I didn’t.

Afterwards Jessy rang me up to say that they had felt terrible and were really worried about me and didn’t want to leave me. They weren’t being insensitive at all and just hadn’t picked up on what I wanted, which was for them to leave me in peace. I hadn’t said anything and they weren’t to know. When she rang I didn’t tell her and said instead that they had been very kind for staying with me. Nigel hadn’t been intentionally stupid with his pathetic attempts at humour, he’d just felt uncomfortable with the heavy atmosphere and was trying to lighten the mood and make me feel better. He just made it worse, but he wasn’t to know that and his intentions were good. And apparently the young lad who came with them was a sensitive soul and said all the way home how sorry he’d felt for me. I had been nothing but rude to him. I asked Jessy to apologise for my behaviour and to tell him that I’m not normally the understudy to a Cathy Bates psychopath.

After getting off the phone to Jessy it rang again immediately. I hoped that it was Russ. I badly wanted to talk to him but it was Mindy ringing with good news. I pasted in a happy voice and didn’t say a word about what had just happened or about the drying dead lizard that I had lying on top of a viv less than a foot away from the telephone. Apparently Shilma has just pooed and although it’s not quite normal the rats are coming through far more digested now. She said that she feels as though we’ve really turned a corner and that Shilma is going to make a good recovery. I pretended to be happy, but I didn’t care.

What happened to Giza was a freak accident. I only put things in the vivs that are either very light or very heavy. If they are light I make sure that they are not dense enough to injure the lizards if the viv furniture fell on them. If it is heavy I always make sure that it goes right on the base of the viv and not on top of the substrate where it could be moved. I’d done this with the Buddha. The problem is that Giza has grown considerably in the six months that we’ve had him. He was just three inches long on the day that he came to us. When he died he was almost a foot long. I hadn’t realised that he was now strong enough to tilt the heavy ornament. Uros love to dig. He’d tilted the Buddha with his weight and then had tried to burrow underneath it. While his head was under it, the ornament had fallen down right on the back of his neck. I just hope and pray that he died instantly and hadn’t lain there for hours scratching pitifully to try and free himself. That thought doesn’t bear thinking about but it just won’t go away.

I needed somebody to blame. Marty came in and I turned my anger on him because he’d been home all day apart from when he brought Stoker to the vets.

“Did you notice if the uros were out today?” I shot at him the second he walked through the door.

“No.”

“No they weren’t out or no you didn’t notice?”

“No, I didn’t notice.”

“Why not?”

“Cos, I’ve been up in my room, doing stuff. Why? What’s the big deal about the uros?”

“The big deal is that while you were too self involved to even bother checking on them, Giza had his head stuck and was probably scratching for hours and hours trying to get free. But it’s okay now Marty, you don’t have to worry, yourself because he’s dead. His neck finally broke.” We argued, and Marty finally stormed up to his room. I didn’t see him again and went to bed soon afterwards.

What happened to Giza was a horrible accident. If it was anybody’s fault that he died then it was mine for putting the stupid bloody ornament in there in the first place. It was not Marty’s fault and I was so wrong to blame him.

I did sprays and waters and then spent half an hour doing a complete health and safety check of all the vivs to see if I could find anything else that might be potentially dangerous. I took a rock formation out of the collard’s viv. The rocks were pretty securely wedged and it’s unlikely that they’d ever come loose, but after Giza’s death I was taking no chances.

Giza was in prime condition. He was absolutely thriving with us and coming on so well, he looked magnificent and that just makes it seem doubly tragic that he died so needlessly. My huge worry now is that we might lose Cairo as well. Cairo depends on Giza. She is the timid one of the two and always took her lead from him. She wouldn’t come out of their burrow until after he’d been out and seen that it was safe and free from predators. She wouldn’t eat unless he did. She slept at night lying on top of Giza’s back. I’m bothered that she’s going to pine and starve herself to death without him. To save her I need to get a replacement viv mate for her fast, but I can’t bring myself to tell Martin what has happened. He gets in the rarer animals that he will only sell to a very small percentage of his customer base. I’m lucky enough to be one of those customers and I just can’t tell him that one of my beautiful uro aegypticus died because a flipping Buddha fell on its head. I want him to think highly of me. I’ve been trying to come up with a plausible sounding lie as to why I want to buy another male `07 aegypticus when I already have a breeding pair. Buying a second female might just make sense but not a male. I feel so guilty.