Her garter is loose
There's a girl at my house having an orgy. But it's not me. It's my Susan the Snake, who lives in my garden with 30 of her new boyfriends.
There's a girl at my house having an orgy.
But it's not me.
It's my Susan the Snake, who lives in my garden with 30 of her new boyfriends.
In fact, I just caught them having sssssssssex.
I'm not making this up.
Let me explain, because in all of my years writing about my misadventures in this house, this one is the most incredible.
You will recall that I wrote recently about a garter snake I discovered in my garden. I thought she was cute, and once I got over the initial heebie-jeebies, I liked having her around. I even took pictures and movies of her, because I thought she was interesting. I named her, like an idiot.
Well, those days are over.
Because I happened to walk down my front walk today and, suddenly, on the flagstone landing was something I had never seen before in my entire life - a massive moving ball of live snakes, writhing all over one another.
No, I wasn't drinking.
But I am now.
I jumped back, screaming, and all of a sudden the snakes went in a million different directions, which was even scarier. I had no idea that snakes could move that fast, and they fled immediately for holes around the garden I didn't even know existed.
I ran into the house, and Francesca happened to be home, so I did what any respectable mother would do.
I fled into the arms of my daughter.
Francesca gave me a hug, listened to my story, then we grabbed her phone to make a video. We both went outside, where she was much braver than I, so she filmed the snakes breaking up their snake ball. She thought the entire episode was incredibly cool.
I did not.
Instead, I went online to try to understand what I had seen, because that's the way things are nowadays, wherein we require electronic means to understand nature.
All I had to do was google garter snake ball.
Well, you guessed it.
The snakes were having a ball.
Literally.
This mass of mating snakes is called a mating ball.
Apparently, I had witnessed the mating ritual of garter snakes, a sight that will turn your stomach or make you jealous, depending on how single a girl you are.
I'm not that single.
The bottom line is, this time of year, a female snake will come out of hibernation and give off pheromones to attract male snakes. Dozens of male snakes will pick up the scent and attempt to mate with one female. One article said a mating ball has "up to 25 males per female," but another article said the males "mate with a single female in droves."
So Susan gets around.
I hate to slut-shame a snake, but still.
Sssssslut.
One article said a single female will attract so many snakes "homeowners sometimes think garter snakes are overrunning their neighborhoods."
Great.
I am that homeowner.
But I don't think the snakes are overrunning my neighborhood. I think they're overrunning my garden.
But wait, it gets worse.
Garter snakes bear live young, and they give birth to 7 to 87 baby snakes.
WHAT?
I'm going to have 87 snakes in my front yard? To add to the snake that I already have?
Not only that, but I researched further and found out the gestational period for garter snakes is two to three months, so I'm looking forward to a sssssssssummer of sssssssssnakes.
But then I read more, and it turns out female garter snakes are able to store sperm in their body and fertilize themselves at will.
This is good news for the female garter snake.
But bad news for me.
I'm looking forward to a rolling tide of baby garter snakes as long as Susan decides she likes kids.
I have no idea what to do about this.
My reaction got only so far as to write about it, so you can share my horror.
Because that's what friends are for.
My only other thought was how fast can I get a sign at the curb:
FOR SSSSSSSSSALE.
Look for Lisa's emotional new thriller, "Most Wanted," in stores now. Also look for Lisa and Francesca's latest humor collection, "Does This Beach Make Me Look Fat?" and Lisa's latest Rosato & DiNunzio novel, "Corrupted."