SAHARA’S COMPLAINT

I must say that this past month has been extremely disagreeable for me. And yesterday was just the worst! I was extremely exhausted and annoyed by the time I got home. Early in the morning, I was moved out of my bed, put into a carrier that resembled a laundry basket, and taken with Adelaide, the bearded dragon, to a fair of some sort. They called it Donkey Days. As far as I’m concerned, they might as well have called it Snake Days, the way I was being dragged around, showed off, petted by all kinds of people, and photographed for the local paper. When we finally were riding home with Rachael, Adelaide said that she had a most wonderful day and she was so proud to be an Educational Animal at Peaceful Valley. Well, no one asked me if I wanted to go from being a Beverly Hills Pet to an Educational Animal at this donkey rescue in the middle of nowhere.

My name is Sahara and I’m an albino Burmese python. I grew up in Beverly Hills, California, where I had the run of a most beautiful apartment. I was allowed to go wherever I wanted, I was fed delicious food, and I grew up very quickly from just a few inches to a nine-foot, beautiful, snake. I was truly living the life in Beverly Hills. My person was very beautiful and loved me very much. Unfortunately, as so often happens in the exotic pet trade, it took me about four wonderful years to outgrow my welcome with my person. I was already much, much longer than she. Maybe she worried she wouldn’t be able to take care of me in the future. I know that she wanted to leave Beverly Hills and travel. Well, you can’t see the world with a nine foot snake wrapped around your shoulders. It might also be a bit difficult to get a permanent boyfriend with a nine-foot snake around. “So,” I said to Adelaide, as we were riding back to the rescue, “while I can understand that my person had to give me away, I’ll never understand why she got me in the first place. She must have known that I would grow up one day. And why do these people in the exotic pet trade even sell snakes, like me, when they know what will happen all along? I may grow to be 20 feet and then what?”

Adelaide looked at me, through the holes in this laundry basket contraption I was traveling in, and said, “But Sahara, don’t you understand that’s what we’re here for? That’s why it’s so important and such an honor to be an Educational Animal. Now we can teach children and grownups that you must think it through before you buy an exotic pet: how big will it get, how old, what will it eat? Your first person didn’t think about what would happen as you grew. Today, you taught a whole lot of kids and parents what an albino Burmese python will look like at four years old. Don’t you think that’s worth a little inconvenience?”

I thought about this for a long while. Overnight, actually, and today I’ve realized that I’m in a very good place. Rachael is a good person. She will take care of me for the rest of my life because she is well educated in rescuing and providing sanctuary for exotic pets, like me. I’ve come to see that living the good life in Beverly Hills made quite a snob out of me. I know once I get my new enclosure, with branches to lie on and humidity to suit my jungle background, I’ll be one truly happy snake again. (Oh, where IS that VOLUNTEER with CARPENTRY skills to help us build it?) In the meantime, I’ll be happy knowing that Rachael and the rest of the people here at Peaceful Valley are doing their very best to care for me. And I will be proud to be an Educational Animal and part of our Compassionate Learning Center team.