Mother for sale, again

So, at Casa Zen, we have as a member of our menagerie a ball python. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ball_python One of these little guys. Herbie is about 2.5 feet and will not likely get much bigger. He is very small, quiet and completely harmless unless you happen to be a white mouse.

Well, Girl Genius here made the mistake of mentioning to Mom in passing the fact that we had Herbie. So, Mother has made it her mission to get rid of the snake. Never mind that 1) she's been down here since we got him and has never even noticed his presence 2) she's here something like a grand total of four times a year anyway. 3) Mother in no way resembles a white mouse. The Snake Must Go. (Oh, the hell he will, in case you were concerned.) So she's been doing this by means of little digs about the snake at every opportunity, and then this.

She read the following article in the paper: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/national_world/stories/2008/08/20/burmese_python.ART_ART_08-20-08_A2_H1B34QJ.html?sid=101

Sadly, it's not too unusual for this to happen with the bigger snakes, as they get too big for people to control and then are turned loose. (The last guidelines I read recommended one handler for every 4 feet of snake to safely handle a reptile; most people can't come up with this.) But, you may have looked closely at the URL! It says BURMESE python. These guys: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burmese_python Yeah, you think it's a different snake much?

Mom didn't, apparently, or didn't care. She sends me this big long e-mail about the above news article, and how Herbie is going to eat our pets, and our pets are too cute to get eaten, blah blah. Did I mention that I'm one of those people who finds snakes eating pets extremely upsetting? Those are the only Animal Cops episodes I can't watch. But that's not all! She got the completely wrong species of snake!

I did not do what I wanted to do, which was call her up and blow out her eardrums with my thoughts on the fact that she couldn't get her facts straight, finishing up with how I really did not appreciate being thought stupid enough to put the other animals in harms way like that. But I did not. Instead I sent back a terse e-mail, "Yes, Burmese pythons are very dangerous. That's why we don't have one." and explained the difference between the two, with links. We'll see if she bothers to read it or not. Yeah, not real happy with her at the moment.