Critter Keeper

02/18/2025

It’s a crying shame that in the first picture you see of my male knight anole, it’s obscured with his jaws around my finger, refusing to let go.

He’s a bitey not-so-little thing.

02/17/2025

PLEASE SHARE.

***FOUND*** Stunning Ball python morph (the snake pictured is NOT the snake). Woodruff/Gray Court/Fountain Inn area.

If you are missing what can only be assumed to be an expensive ball python, I would love to reunite you with your animal.

Please be prepared to provide a picture of your animal. Bonus points if you can tell me what kind of morph it is (I know).

It is unknown how long this animal has been on its own in the wild. It was fairly chilly when it was found, and it is presently in quarantine. It seems to be underweight for now. I believe it may be at risk of having a respiratory infection, but it is now under observation and responsible care. We’ll give it about a week before we attempt to feed.

If no one comes forward to claim it, it’s in a good home. I have no problem at all of keeping it and caring for it. But if it is yours, and you want it back, you can have it.

Slither into my DMs if it’s yours.

02/17/2025

On Sunday, I had a rather leisurely day mapped out. Get up, go to church, and take my time getting the critters together for a late afternoon party for Merryn.

What actually happened was another story altogether. Literally.

My first indication that my day might go a little sideways was that little chirp from my phone while I was nursing my first cup of coffee.

A photo had come over my phone. Before the accompanying message comes through, I’ve already identified the snake. It was outside, next to some steps leading into a house. It was a ball python, but the amazing color and pattern told me it was a high-dollar morph. Obviously, someone’s escaped pet.

My messenger informed me that the person who lives in the house where the snake is happens to be terrified of the creatures, and was going to kill it. My messenger begged the person not to do so, and now the snake was in a garbage can waiting for someone to come get it. The weather’s been cool lately, and no one had a clue of where the snake had even come from. This area is very rural, and none of the residents in the area fessed up to being the owner of the snake.

My messenger also tells me that under normal circumstances, she’d have no problem going to get the snake, but she was at home alone with her newborn. She shared my concerns about the cooler weather.

Now, this place is 15-20 minutes away, so I’m thinking if I went now, I could make it back in time for church. Alternatively, I could go right after church, and get back in plenty of time to ready the animals and get to Merryn’s party. Because of the cooler temperatures, and because the ball python is a tropical species, the sooner the better.

I’m ruminating over my options when my phone rings. A gentleman introduces himself.

I get to the point. “Are you calling about the ball python?”

He says, “Huh? Wha -? No.” He tells me he has a strange request. He doesn’t know how much I like strange requests.

His daughter has a birthday party this afternoon. They were scheduled to have my friend Chuck with Wildlife Geeks come out, but Chuck had come down with the flu. Chuck gave them my number.

You’ve probably read on this page before how we animal acts in this area do not consider ourselves to be in competition with one another. We’re friends. We all bring something a little different to the table. We try to help one another out.

I’ve been in Chuck’s shoes, coming down sick and being unable to do a scheduled event. With schools and churches, those can usually be rescheduled. But birthday parties are tough, especially at the last minute. Being unable to do a birthday party because I’m sick makes me even sicker.

This party is at 2:00 pm, and it’s roughly an hour’s drive from there to my 4 pm party. I’m thinking…

“Please, if there’s any way you can do this…”

I explain that there’s not quite enough time between the two events for me to do an unabbreviated party, because I would have to leave the 2 pm event by 2:40 or so just to arrive at my 4 pm event by 3:30, to get set up and give that birthday child some bonus time with some animals…

“I can do it,” I tell him. I tell him to text me the info, and to expect me between 1230 and 1. I tell him we’re going to give Stella about an hour’s worth of bonus time with the animals. It’s her birthday, and we’re going to make her feel special. He gets a little excited.

In hanging up, I realize I’m going to miss church because of the party prep on my end, so I tell my wife that I just booked an emergency Critter Keeper party, and she rolled her eyes.

Then I think, you know, I’ve got enough time to run out and rescue that ball python. I grab a fresh pillowcase and several handwarmers.

Twenty minutes later, I’m pulling into a dirt driveway and drive up the hill to a rather small house. I don’t see any neighbors. Like I said, it’s a very rural area. My messenger had told me that the owners were probably in church, and that the python was in a garbage can. As I put my car in park, I notice two garbage cans laying on their sides near a wire fence.

I step out of my vehicle, I turn, and I immediately freeze.

A rather large black dog, which I discerned to be a pit bull/German shepherd mix, is now blocking any progress I can make away from my vehicle. I mean, this dog is literally two feet away from me. His tail is not wagging. Upon closer inspection, he doesn’t even have a tail. He also doesn’t have an inclination to move. He gave me a low “woof.”

I hear my car door click shut behind me.

One of the most important things my dad taught me when I was a boy was “Never show fear to a dog.” I may have to share some stories one of these days on how that advice, and me following that advice, has saved my bacon so many times.

So, with my hands now in a position to ward off a potential attack, I square up with the dog, and I didn’t turn my back on it. Then I started talking to the beast, hopefully stumbling on a word he might recognize:

“Hey, buddy. Are you a good dog? He’s a good dog, What’s he doing? Good boy. He’s a good boy…”

Then I took a slight step forward, and the dog turned his head as if he was no longer interested, and he slowly sauntered off somewhere.

With the dog out of the way, I headed over to the garbage cans. One was empty, the other had a garbage bag. Inside the garbage bag… was garbage.

So I untied the straps and started sifting through the food debris and empty containers. Mayonnaise jar, butter wrapper, soup cans, assorted vegetable scraps. At least the snake was well-insulated.

An indiscernible sound comes from the house. I look at the doorway, and there’s a figure on the other side of the storm door, and Great Scott! Is that a shotgun or a rifle?

“Are you here for the snake?”

An elderly woman, and by elderly, I mean older than me, stepped from behind the storm door. The imagined firearm was apparently just one of the door frames. That dog must have made me a little jumpy.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“It’s over here on the porch.”

The python seemed to be a little underweight for its length, and gave the impression to me that it was glad it was found, as it pressed the length of its coils against the warmth of my arms and body.

With the snake in hand, I thanked her for not killing it, and apologized profusely for her discovering me rummaging through her garbage like I was a homeless person. I put this pretty cool (in more ways than one) ball python in the pillowcase and activated the handwarmers. Miss Audrey and I got along splendidly, and she laughed out loud when I offered to come back out to get her over her fear of snakes with the shock therapy I offer.

And that dog wasn’t even hers. She doesn’t know who it belongs to.

Thirty minutes later, I’m back at home quarantining the ball python in some warm comfortable digs. I’m starting to get animals together, even deciding to bring Wakka, my fantasy Pac-Man frog along, since I plan on doing extended bonus features at Stella’s party.

My phone chirps. Another message.

I suck in a sharp breath. I’m not a huge salamander fan, but I got a little excited when I saw a picture of this big spotted salamander that came out after the recent rains. They are stunning. I have a very large tiger salamander that I’ve had for going on a decade - it’s doubled in size since I acquired it - and while the spotted will never reach that size, it’s still a very impressive animal.

My day has gotten a little crowded than what was originally scheduled, so we agree to meet so I can take the salamander after my 4 pm party.

It’s not even noon by this time. My animals are loaded up, and I head out for the nearly hour-long-drive to Stella’s party, or better put, her extended bonus features. I get there a little before 1, and man, I didn’t realize how windy it was. The flags on the flagpole outside the Legion building are popping straight out. I walk into the building and while Stella and her family are happy to see me, it seems the family is now dealing with another hiccup. With the high winds, a transformer has blown, and the whole building is without power, as of about ten minutes ago. Some of the folks seemed a little frustrated and down because things weren’t going according to plan.

“Listen, folks,” I said, “I know you’ve been through it this morning. Nothing seems to be working out. It’ll be okay. It’s been my experience that the best and most memorable events - weddings, birthdays, vacations, maybe even funerals - happen when things DON’T go according to plan.”

“Stella,” I say, “I know that Chuck and his animals would really like to be here. How about coming over here and let me show you some of mine?”

For the next 45 minutes or so, Stella got some amazing hands-on animal time. Bonus points go out to some of Stella’s friends who arrived early. Around 2, we started the “actual” party, and brought out the larger animals, replete with the appropriate drama, humor, surprises, and scares.

By 2:45, I was on the road. My next destination was 50 minutes away. The power at the building was still off when I left.

The 4 pm party went off without a hitch, if you didn’t count me picking a little girl named Geneva to hold the tarantula, since the birthday girl was having none of it. I got a little excited when I learned her name, because 50+ years ago, I had named my very first tarantula Geneva. Geneva (the little girl, not the tarantula) was even less impressed now that she understood that she was expected to hold the tarantula.

This took a while, because Geneva was terrified. Fortunately, Geneva is what my mom would call “a pistol.” She had the whole room in stitches from her animated expressions and gestures, and especially her sharp wit. Finally, with her dad’s help, Geneva held Cookie, and as expected, she decided it wasn’t so bad after all.

Then, it was homeward bound, with a brief detour to pick up that spotted salamander.

And in the day that just keeps on giving, I receive a text from my wife letting me know that our own power has gone out, and wasn’t expected to come back home until 9:30 pm. That busts up my plan of getting home, getting the garage door open, putting the animals away, checking on that ball python, and setting up an enclosure for the salamander. So I pick up dinner and start planning on pulling out the small solar generator, and get some heat into the Critter Cabin. Right before I get home, the unexpected happens.

The power came back on several hours early. The rest of the evening went on as originally planned, as if nothing unexpected had even happened.

I’ll be making another post soon, and I hope you’ll share that one. I’d like to find the original owner of that ball python and return it to them, if it’s even wanted. I don’t know how long it’s been out; it may have holed up under houses and the like avoiding the freezing weather we’ve had of late. It’s a beautiful snake, and it’s quarantined now, since it’s at risk of a respiratory infection. It’s not your run-of-the-mill ball python, and it has rather distinctive colors and markings. The owner will have to tell me what kind of morph it is, or at least provide a picture. For that reason, I won’t be providing a picture of the snake just yet. I now know what kind of morph it is.

If no one comes forward, we’re just going to say that the snake set off on its lifelong dream of running away to join the circus.

And the circus found him.

02/15/2025

I love easy. Easy, for me, is shopping for critters online, whipping out my debit card, and waiting patiently until they arrive a day or two later.

The hard part is coordinating details around less-than-optimal regional temperatures, less-than-optimal customer service, and the disappointment you feel when, once the animals arrive, they don’t meet the lofty expectations you had when you ordered them. You know, like when you order and pay for an emperor scorpion but they send you an Asian forest scorpion, or you order and pay for an adult animal and they ship you a juvenile. That stuff happens from time to time.

It has happened with each of the two primary sites that I order animals from, which is probably why they know me by name now. I refresh their memory in the comment section of each order that these will be display animals, so the bigger the better.

I prefer one of the companies over the other, because when they say “overnight shipping,” they mean it. When you put your order in, you’re picking it up the very next morning. Plus, if there’s an issue on their end, they pick up the phone and actually call you.

Unfortunately, my preferred company was out of stock of the animals I was interested in. The other company had them, but most of the aforementioned negative issues I’ve had, they’ve been involved in. Plus, their “overnight” is two days; order on Wednesday, deliver on Friday.

In thinking about it, the whole ordeal is kind of hit-or-miss, anyway. I’ve actually ordered two Uromastyx over the past year from my preferred company, and both of those lizards were rather underwhelming juveniles that seemed to be underweight, and both died within a couple of weeks of receipt.

Anyway, I ordered on Wednesday, and received the tracking number on Thursday evening, for delivery on Friday. This is where it becomes no longer easy. It becomes a bit of an adventure, and not a fun one. You see, now I have to arrange for the shipment to be held at the distribution center for personal pickup. I do this whenever I have a shipment come in so that animals don’t have to ride around in the back of a truck for three or four hours in cold or hot weather. Each of these reptile companies uses a particular shipping company. And, as you may have guessed, one of these shipping companies is not like the other.

8:00 pm Thursday: I’m in the website, tracking my shipment, trying desperately to “hold at station” for customer pickup. It does not give me an option to do that. The address of the distribution center isn’t on there. It used to be. It seems I can have this package delivered to any of a half-dozen satellite outlets in my area, but if I do that, I might as well just have it delivered to my house.

Meanwhile, the virtual assistant on the website is prompting me to start a chat so that “she” can help me. She is not helping me; she is actually trying to walk me through to get to where I’m already at on the website. I can make no further progress this way.

I start making phone calls. This is where I can usually get things done. All I have to do is get past the virtual assistant that answers the telephone.

I know this woman. She has an electronic voice that is not unpleasant. Unfortunately, she does not listen! I have talked to her many times in the past, she has never told me her name. But I always call her “Ingrid.”

Ingrid (not her real name) does not comprehend the words “agent,” “representative,” or “I’d like to speak with a human.” Not even if you say “please.” She’s programmed to do a job; her job is a gatekeeper, and Ingrid is good at her job.

10:00 pm: Inexplicably, perhaps because of my persistence, I finally get past Ingrid the gatekeeper, and I’m about to talk to a real, live, human. I’m about to get this resolved. Patrick picks up the phone, after about 15 minutes of a light synthetic drumbeat and someone messing around on a keyboard - probably Ingrid. But I hear another genuine human voice.

10:15 pm: Patrick is pleasant and seemingly willing to help me with my issue. He speaks English very well, and is easily understood despite his South Asian accent. He chuckles nervously when I discuss my issues with Ingrid (again, not her real name) and I begin wondering if Patrick was ever picked on as a kid growing up in Mumbai with a name like Patrick.

After explaining that I needed a “hold at station,” Patrick asked for my name again, tracking number, where it was being shipped to, the origin… and then, just like Ingrid, informed me that “good news, the package was on its way, and would be delivered to my home by noon on Friday.”

Again, I explained the reasons I didn’t want that. It was important that I pick up the shipment at station, like I’ve done scores of other times, because cold weather is a detriment to the health of reptiles.

“Oh, but I can’t do that.”

“Why not, Patrick?”

“Security reasons.”

“Patrick, you can’t tell me that with me showing a valid ID and signing for a package that is held at station is more of a security threat than the driver dropping a box off at an address somewhere.”

11:00 pm: My wife walks by with my pillow, reminding me that she has to work tomorrow, and she doesn’t need me waking her up when I come to bed or get up early to take Chappie to be dropped off at the vet for some routine dog maintenance. I’m informed that I’ll be sleeping in the guest room tonight. Someone is getting eight hours of rest tonight, and it ain’t me.

11:01: Patrick and I are still going at it, in a cordial and professional fashion, of course. Apparently if you have an account with this company, you get more options and are less of a security risk. Honestly, I have an account, but I always just use “guest” because I can never remember the right combo of username and password. And finally it seemed he acquiesced.

“I’m going to connect you to a number. These people will help you.”

“Awesome, Patrick. They can do a hold at station?”

“Theyre technical support. They’ll help you set up an account.”

“Oh, great,” I said.

“I’ll have to leave a message for them. But I’ll have them call you. They’re getting ready to close in less than an hour, so hopefully they’ll get to you tonight. I’ll tell them it’s urgent.”

“Thanks, Patrick. *sigh* Oh, what time zone are they in?” It was a little after 11:15 pm now.

“Time zone? What do you mean?

“Pacific? Central? Eastern?”

“Oh!” Patrick exclaimed. “Eastern. I’m pretty sure that it’s Eastern.”

11:30 pm: I am now locked out of my online account after repeated attempts of using different combinations of usernames and passwords. I have to wait at least 24 hours before trying again.

11:45 pm: My phone rings. It’s Steven. Patrick came through. Steven gave me a quick call before he goes home for the evening. But he’s pretty sure he can help me. I relate the whole rigamarole of needing to hold the package at station, that it’s going to be 30 degrees in the morning, and they’re reptiles, so…

“I can’t really help you with that,” he says.

I’m pinching the bridge of my nose now.

“But I’ve got a kind of a back door number. These folks take care of needs like yours. But they’re closed right now.”

“I don’t see how this is helping me, Steven.”

“No, they get there early. At like 4:30 in the morning. Give them a call then. That’ll give you time to get that hold at station activated.”

“Okay, Steven.”

12:30 am: I set my alarm for 4:30, and crawl into bed. My mind is all over the place, and it took a while to go to sleep.

4:30 am: The alarm jars me awake, and I hit “snooze” a couple of times.

4:45 am: I make the call, and a familiar voice answers. It’s Ingrid. It is then I realize that the “back door number” given to me by Steven is exactly the same number that I called initially over eight hours ago.

6:00 am: The alarm jars me awake again, and again I hit “snooze” a couple of times. Somewhere, I hear Ingrid giggling. Steven is in the background, I’m sure.

7:00 am: I’m on my second cup of coffee, and Chappie and I are out the door.

7:45 am: Chappie has been dropped off, and I’m in the parking lot of the vet, searching on my phone for the shipping company. Where I’ve picked up my animals in the past is not shown. I went ahead and swung by one of the nearby satellite drop-offs, but that turned out to be a drugstore. I decided that, before I gave up and resigned myself to waiting at home for some cold reptiles, I would just head to the old distribution center where I’d picked up packages before.

8:15 am: I arrive. It seems to be open. Lots of trucks, coming and going. I go to the door, and there’s a big sign on the glass: PERMANENTLY CLOSED. I get the attention of one of the semi drivers, and he’s kind and helpful, directing me to the other side of the building.

8:22 am: I park my car a little closer, and start walking toward a huge bay door, avoiding big brown trucks parked outside. One is backing into the bay, where dozens more big brown trucks are parked inside. It’s loud in here and warmer, and I hear voices and trucks moving. I am unimpressed by all the brown. Brown hasn’t done anything for me lately.

I’m directed deep inside this huge building, past more brown trucks, box-filled shelves, and conveyors, to a small office in the middle of this gigantic building and its sea of activity. No one has asked me who I am or what my business is here, so I’m guessing Patrick’s security fears were unfounded.

I open the door, and introduce myself to the somewhat surprised lady sitting at her computer. I explain the situation, and this lady got on it. She’s pulling up screens on her computer, she’s on the handheld, and she’s telling me that it’s Ashley’s route, and she may have already left. Knowing it’s completely out of my hands, I ask if there’s a restroom about. The lady tells me to go out of the office, down one aisle, up some stairs, and through a workroom.

I’m gone seven or eight minutes tops. I walk back into the office, and to my utter and complete surprise, there’s another guy standing there with a box. It reads “Perishable” on the side. “Are you Randy? I need your signature.”

I almost can’t believe it. I am effusive in my gratitude, and in the brief light-hearted banter, it slips out that one of the workers had to toss my box down about 30 feet where it was caught by another worker.

9:10 am. I arrive home, and open the box. The giant centipede is exactly what I ordered and expected. The medium-large male knight anole is all male, and very large. Expectations exceeded.

And the uromastyx? Bloody spectacular. I am elated.

I know this has been a long read. But it was a long night, and I needed to convey that. I had set up enclosures for all three animals on Thursday, so it was minimal effort getting them into their new warm and comfortable digs.

Then, I did something I very rarely do. I took a nap, and it was glorious.

In closing, I’ll leave you with the first line of another very long read. I find it appropriate to be the last line here.

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.”

02/09/2025

Eh, no photo, but I need to document a proud Grandad moment so it will show up in my memories.

Today was “feed the snakes” day. I’ve documented numerous times on this page that feeding the big snakes is, if you don’t count all my time on the road, the most dangerous this I do. I try never to be alone during this task, just in case something goes awry, which has been known to happen. I left my phone in the house, not wanting any distractions.

Today, Avery was my “spotter.”

It all went according to plan; we had one jumbo rat left and it was reserved for Plasma, the Blood Python.

The jumbo rat was ready, with the tail of the rat firmly gripped in the four-foot-long tongs, secured by a hand grip on the other end.

My hands were full, with one hand squeezing the grip, and the other hand supporting the weight of the tongs and the large rat.

Since I had to open Plasma’s enclosure, I handed the tongs over to Avery, instructing her to keep the grip tight so the rat’s tail wouldn’t slip out of the tongs.

Plasma was in the back of her enclosure, behind her hide and water dish. She has a very fast and violent strike. I figured, “a kid’s gotta learn sometime.”

“Okay, Aves,” I said, “you’re up. Don’t let go of the rat until it’s hit.”

She looked at me with a quick furrowed brow. As I write this, I’m realizing that just a few moments before, she had witnessed Julius Squeezer striking at a rat, extending his body out at least 4 1/2 feet, and missing his rat.

I’m missing my phone with its camera right now.

“Keep a firm grip on the rat. Put it inside the cage and dangle it over the snake.”

Nervously, she complied.

Nothing happened.

“She’s probably sleeping,” I told Aves. “Do this. Let the rat’s nose dance along her back. That’ll wake her up.”

Nothing was hap…

WHAM!

Like I said, Plasma has a violent strike, and the cool thing is, before the rat even hits the ground, the snake already has at least one coil around its prey.

“Aves?”

Her eyes were frozen wide open. Her mouth was agape.

“Aves?”

She snapped out of it.

“Yes, Grandad?”

“You can let go of the grip now.” She still had the tongs squeezing a kink into the rat’s tail.

You folks know me. I love making a kid’s day. As I watched Avery run home next door, a high dose of adrenaline coursing through her veins, I couldn’t help but think how more special it is when the kid whose day you just made is your own granddaughter.

02/09/2025

This picture is from 11 years ago. I was younger then.

I can’t do Super Boa Sunday like that anymore.

02/09/2025

Picture this with me if you will:

Eight or ten years after attending several Critter Keeper parties, a high school student is in history class, learning about the Roman Empire.

He asks himself, “Where have I heard that name before?”

And after all those years, he suddenly realizes how Julius Squeezer got his name.

I would bet that has happened. And I’ll bet it will happen again.

Things like this are why I sleep so well at night.

02/07/2025

Ooof. Pretty big toad. Toady Soprano, especially after eating a couple hundred crickets and soaking in his water bowl, is OVER THREE POUNDS. That’s more than Antoadio Banderas and Buford put together. Might have to break down and get a toad truck after all!

02/04/2025

The animal with the highest bite force in our area is probably the black bear.

Learn how to protect yourself.

02/04/2025

Well, well. The sailfin dragon didn’t bolt when I opened the enclosure to offer some fruit. And then, right out my hand - several times. I surely wasn’t expecting that.

02/03/2025

😳😳😳 Well, that puts things in perspective. Interesting read. I’m thankful none of my animals have a bite with a psi like that.

Fascinating photo shared on Facebook compares the dentition of a grey wolf to that of a spotted hyena. Both are fearsome predators, but the bite force of the hyena (1,100 pounds per square inch or psi) is more than double that of a wolf (398 psi). Combined with a powerful digestive system, hyenas are one of the few carnivores capable of crushing and digesting the large bones of their prey (allows then to get to the highly nutritious marrow). Other carnivores will gnaw on large bones and eat the small ones. For the carnivores of our planet, bite force is more than bragging rights. It helps determine what type of prey they go after and how large of an animal they are willing to take on, how that prey is hunted and subdued, and how it is consumed. Biting is also a main defensive weapon for predators against other predators.

Further research in articles like the one below show other interesting comparisons. For example, the gorilla is one of the few herbivores listed on the top list, but its large teeth, and strong neck and jaw muscles give it a powerful bite (1,300 psi) which is stronger than most of the top carnivores. It allows gorillas to consume all parts of the plants they eat including roots - or even crack open a coconut. The puma/panther has relatively small head, but it's bite comes in at 725 psi and, combined with its ambush style of hunting and fast speed, makes it more than capable of taking down prey larger than itself. Jaguars easily top the cat list (1,500 psi), and they are the only feline that can kill large prey by piercing the skull as opposed to biting the neck. Crocodilians are at the top of the list below (3,700 psi) and, given their inability to grasp, use their sharp teeth and vise-like jaws to clamp down on prey before spinning rapidly to tear off bite-sized pieces.

Our own bite force is a lowly 160 psi and probably contributes to our fondness for cooked food and marinades - as well as our complete reliance on weapons when we hunt or fish. Not surprising that an online search showed orcas with the top bite force in the animal kingdom coming in at 19,000 psi.

https://brightside.me/articles/15-animals-that-have-the-strongest-bite-796851

02/03/2025

It’s a day off… sort of.

I need to fill up several dozen water jugs and get them shelved in the garage. I may wait until my granddaughter Evelyne gets home from second grade, and let her earn a little extra money. I was thinking about asking my daughter to pull her out of school early while the weather is nice, but that probably wouldn’t fly. I can’t seem to convince her that, in the words of Captain Augustus McCrae from “Lonesome Dove, “the best education that kid is going to get is listening to me talk.”

I need to replace my table. One of the welds broke on a leg about a week ago, and while jury-rigging it with gorilla tape worked much better than the Scotch tape from the original jury-rig, I’d feel better about switching it out altogether. I have other uses for a potentially unstable table.

And then there’s laundry. Soiled pillowcases, cloth bags, the tableskirt, and such. Some folks have asked how my wife is okay with me doing the critter laundry in the home washing machine.

Surprisingly, she’s okay with it, just like she is when I run the small travel containers through the kitchen dishwasher, or when I bathe a python, boa, or Mexican beaded lizard in the bathtub.

I wait until she’s gone for a few hours, and then I get busy, and have it all done before she gets back.

Works like a charm.