The Rattlesnake

In celebration of Father's Day, I made my famous steak fajita dinner and had my parents over.  After dinner, Terry and my dad were making homemade chocolate ice cream so I decided to take a walk with my mom and Ryan.  We went down to the dock and watched a bird eat a fish, laughed about Florida's weird weather because it was actually chilly with the wind blowing, and then we walked back. Sweet, right?

This is where the story gets good.

We're almost to the elevators when we see a man walking across the parking lot carrying a large, stuffed (or is it mounted?) RATTLESNAKE.  A big, fat rattlesnake posed with it's fangs out like it's about to strike.  My mom instantly noticed this and asked the man "Is that a snake?"  To which he replied "Yes it is!" and walked over with the snake.  I'm not going to lie, it was pretty cool to see up close.  Nonetheless, I looked and was losing interest, but anyone who knows my mom knows that she had not.  They started exchanging snake stories and then he informed us that he had an 8 foot alligator in his condo.  "Alive?!" my mom asked in disbelief.  We all laughed hysterically and he informed her that the only living creatures in his condo were his dogs.  He then invited us to go see said alligator.

Most people would politely decline.  Here's a man holding a rattlesnake and he wants to take us inside to show us his "alligator."  Not Mom...So we followed him to his door.  I immediately called Terry to inform him that we were taking a detour to ROOM 103 to look at an alligator, repeated it at least 3 times to make sure he knew where to look in the event we never returned, and then hung up.  Much to my relief, there really was an alligator on the wall among other stuffed critters-- those big crabs with the stinger lookin tail (I don't remember what they're called), deer, fish, etc.  We also met his naked dog which he said was a Chinese something-or-other and introduced ourselves.  He turned out to be a very nice guy.

Mom and I exchanged glances all the way to the elevator after we left.  Her look was very sheepish while mine was more REALLY????  We laughed hysterically in the elevator.  I just wondered why in the world all rules of safety no longer applied when a man was carrying a RATTLESNAKE.  What about that made her think "Oh, he must be nice!"????  I may never understand....but we came out alive and I now want a hairless dog.

And for the record, Terry thought we were in Room 108....so my potential last call would have been for nothing!!