Long Snakey Story

From Great North Road

By: Linda Dore

I read through the two latest additions to the Northern Tales last night and was rolling with laughter at the leopard story. Reminds me of a time when my then fiancé and I went out into the bush to visit with a friend of his who was tracking a renegade elephant for a local chief. We "acquired" a very long python, at least 10 ft. long and decided to bring it into town as a pet. We lived in an upstairs flat at the time and I have no idea why we thought of such a stupid idea. Anyway, we taped the snakes mouth up just to be on the safe side and shoved it in an old suitcase on the back seat of the car. We had to go to the airport as soon as we got back to Kitwe, to pick my dad up who was visiting from RSA, so we decided to leave it on the back seat. My dad gets in the car and says what's in the case. To which we reply a 10 ft. python.. Oh, he says and carries on like nothing is amiss, draping his arm casually over the case as he is talking to us. He had a chronic fear of snakes and I think he would have had a heart attack if he had believed us. I think he thought we were pulling his leg! When we got home, we decided to put the case on the balcony out of the way and retrieve the snake when my dad left a few days later. Well, wouldn't you know it, when we went to get it, there was a hole in the case and no snake. We have no idea where it went because it would have had to slither up the wall of the balcony to get over it, and then drop two stories to the ground!! I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall when it was finally found by someone else!! My fiancé was very fond of snakes and one other time he came back into town with some motley looking specimen, about the same size as that one and he decided to take it to work to scare the boys in the workshop. He put it in a suitcase, like the ones that they used to come around with when they had carvings to sell, and he told the boys that he had old clothes to sell. They were all pushing and shoving each other to get close to the case and have first dibs at the contents when he opened the lid. You've never seen anything like it! There was a screaming stampede to get away. Cruel joke really, but very funny at the time.