There's Noah Place Like Home

Earlier today I returned from a trip to Australia. It was a trip I'd been looking forward to because it was to be my first visit to Melbourne. I'd heard from many Melbournians how nice their city was, and I discovered they were right. I loved the wide roads, the generous greenery, and the interesting buildings. But the highlight of my trip had nothing to do with roads, shrubbery or avant-garde architecture. It was a visit to a lady who lives in the suburbs with her family.

I was sitting in her living room and had just started making conversation when out of the corner of my eye I saw something move. I looked up and saw a snake. And then another. And another.

And another.

Luckily for my composure, by the time I'd finished counting the snakes I had realized that all four of them were safely housed in a large glass cage. Having thus evaded a heart attack I decided to have a closer look. To my surprise, they were gorgeous! I usually view snakes with a cordial blend of distaste and distrust. But these were lovely black and gold and green creatures. Their skin had a burnished chrome finish that screamed "clean and healthy". And they had no odor – no sign of the gamey smell that saturates the air in snake parks. They were simply beautiful creatures.

My hostess was obviously pleased by my interest and she proceeded to tell me more than I really wanted to hear. It turned out that they had more pets. A few more snakes at the back. A box of scorpions (?!) and a bunch of tree frogs in the living room. Some guinea pigs and rabbits - although not all the rabbits were pets; some were snake fodder. Gecko lizards. And in the midst of this menagerie they also had a dog. It was so odd to have an ordinary animal along with all the others, that it felt as if the dog was the exotic pet. Finally, she (the hostess, not the dog) told me a little sadly that she also used to have a stick insect, but it had died a few days previously. I gave her a nod that I hoped look sympathetic because my thoughts certainly weren't. All I could think was "Who the hell keeps a stick insect as a pet?"

It all made a little mores sense when she (the hostess, not the dog or the stick insect) told me she used to work in the Melbourne zoo. And as she talked some more, I realized how great an environment it was for her kids to grow up in. They each had their tasks to perform such as feeding and cleaning. And they knew that the pets depended on them. So they were learning lessons in discipline and responsibility.

Of course they were also learning about nature. The lady told me about a time when her nine-year-old son had filled his water bottle with dirt. When quizzed about what he was trying to do he explained that he was using the bottle of dirt to keep a spider he had found. The thing that impressed me most was that this kid knew the name of the species of spider that he had.

What a cool house for a boy to grow up in! And what a cool thing that I got to visit it!