More Snake Adventures

Yes, it's true. The saga continues. So when we last left our hero, Bobo the snake had just been rescued from the book shelf by BIL and DH, having spent the night there after escaping from his cage the night BIL and sister (Is there a blog acronym for that? DS, for Dear Sister?) arrived for their Spring Break trip back East. Yeah, we even found scales under the bed, which means he took a little detour before heading to the bookshelf. That thought freaked sis out, to say the least. Anyway, BIL tracked him down, and we got him safely back into the cage. Then BIL decided Bobo would probably be hungry after his little excitement, and so BIL got Bobo a mouse for dinner. Bobo snatched it up greedily, just like he always does, and sister pronounced it one of the grossest things she has ever seen. Ok, that was what, a month ago? Well, we decided he was probably getting hungry again (we feed him about once a month), so we got Bobo a mouse yesterday. Now, it was during the day, and snakes feed at night, but we were too busy to give it to him that night, and we figured he would be hungry enough to eat the mouse. We were wrong. Bobo didn't touch the mouse. Seriously. The mouse at first was running around, you know, like terrified animals who know they will be shortly consumed by a predator do. But eventually, after about 3 hours, the mouse settled down into the cage, built himself a little nest with Bobo's bark, and FELL ASLEEP! Ok, if this mammal is NAPPING, surely he is not feeling in fear of the very large reptile less than a foot away. Weird. At one point, before the mouse's little moment of slumber, the two animals actually, as Jacob put it, nuzzled noses. Jacob was actually quite delighted. Hey, the mouse and snake are friends! What the heck is this? Bobo doesn't make friends with mice--he's a killing machine! Not so yesterday. Ok, so we decide to leave the mouse there, and check up on him in the morning. Surely he would have disposed of the mammal at night, right? Again, wrong. We woke up this morning, only to find that the little mouse had dug a trench in the bark and was snuggled UNDER the snake's water dish, which was full, which meant that the snake couldn't get at him. Smart little bugger, if you ask me. And at this point, Bobo was completely curled up, totally uninterested. Jacob said, "Oh, they really ARE friends!" My dad said, "This is the beginning of a children's book". Jacob said, "What book? Can you read it to me? Where's the book?" Yeah, thanks Dad. So now what do we do with the mouse? Bobo won't eat the mouse if it is dead. How long can a mouse go without food and water? We finally decided to take the mouse out of the cage and try to keep it alive until we think Bobo will eat it. We now have the mouse installed in Lola's old cage (Lola, for those of you who haven't kept up, is our former parakeet. She drowned in the toilet) with newspaper and mouse food that I got from the pet store ages ago in preparation for this very scenario. Now Jacob wants to name this mouse. Hello? How are we supposed to feed a mouse with a name to Bobo? Like any one of us want to see Bobo devour "Fluffy". DH thinks we should just cut our losses, let the stupid mouse free in the woods and let the thing fend for itself, forfeiting the $1.20 we paid for it. A lot less hassle, and, arguably, more humane. At least we are giving the mouse a chance. Ok, not much of one, since it was born in captivity, has no idea how to forage for food, and is snow white, which means it doesn't exactly blend in with the forest floor, but hey, we could at least say we tried. Or, something like that. My sister had the best suggestion. Keep the mouse as a pet and just buy another one for Bobo. Think of it as food storage for the snake. I guess that would go under the motto "Be prepared."