Fallout: Part III of The Journal Series

Chapter Thirteen: Bounce House Blow Up

August, 1998.

I removed the thawed rabbit from the bucket of hot water, wrung it out, and placed it in a dry towel to throughly dab the liquid from its tawny fur.

Baby knew what was up. The second I walked in one of my snake rooms with the bucket full of defrosted rodents they all caught the scent and began sniffing around, flicking their tongues around the entrances of their cages where they knew their meals would appear. It was feed day, and I always fed Baby first.

"Hey, baby girl." I crouched before her enclosure, watching as she pressed her nose to the glass, her black tongue tasting the air. "It's that day, already!"

I slid the door farthest away from her tracking head open, threw in the rabbit, and watched her instantly slither over and grab it, no coaxing or pretending the damn thing was alive needed, as was required with my picky ball pythons, cobras, vipers, kingsnakes, and the like.

The great thing about boas is that they're fucking garbage disposals; they'll eat practically anything you toss in their cage. 

Duff was more softhearted when it came to chucking a rabbit in her enclosure, but if it was a slab of chicken breast or a couple fat rats it didn't matter. He couldn't do the rabbits alive, which I understood, so she'd been on a steady diet of frozen bunnies since Duff and I got together, and it hadn't changed since. And throwing small pigs to the anacondas, retics, and burms? Forget about it. Duff's inexplicable adoration of pigs just wouldn't allow it, so that was my job.

Satisfied after observing her devour nearly half of her rabbit, I began feeding everyone else. The white lipped python was particularly snippy that day, damn near taking a hunk of my hand instead of the prey presented. The Argentine boa wasn't interested, so I skipped him over and would try again later. And I had a pregnant Brazilian rainbow boa with incredibly beautiful bright red scales and amazing iridescence set to give birth any day now that I offered a snack to, but she refused.

I continued to the smaller snakes after tossing meals to my innumerable large ones, lugging buckets of all sizes along with me. The hognoses were first. 

Duff loved those little guys. The fact that they were venomous didn't deter him, seeing as they're rear-fanged and their mouths could barely close in on his fingertip. They were cute, they were usually friendly, but when they weren't they were over dramatic. 

I used to give him hell about teasing and pestering them when they weren't in the mood for attention, poking and prodding them in the palm of his hand, giggling to himself as they curled up on their backs and exposed their shiny bellies, their tongues flailing, playing dead. They were total fucking drama queens, and when Duff wasn't picking on them he had fun hand feeding them little bits of boiled egg for a treat while I tended to all the giant snakes he didn't want to see devour his precious pigs.

It took about three hours to get all my scaly loves fed, from the baby sunbeams to Clyde's massive bulk.

Man, it took forever to get Duff accustomed to Clyde as he grew, no matter the fact that he'd known him from a baby.