R e z i n

I’ve had a giant day gecko in a large bioactive enclosure for many years. The other day, I noticed I hadn’t seen her and put out some food for her to see if she was just hiding. The next day, the food hadn’t been touched, and I noticed that one of the vents had actually been pushed out of the enclosure. This never happened before, and I’ve had this enclosure for years. Somehow, this little lizard pushed it out and got free.

Freedom isn’t free for a tropical lizard in Pittsburgh. The door to my place has been open enough that it’s likely she got outside. It’s a sad situation, but I really hope she enjoyed the experience of freedom.

I was looking back through old pictures on my Instagram to see how long it had been since I “rescued her from Petco”. That whole concept is complete trash and I’ve had to train myself to never go into a chain pet store and look at the reptiles, because there’s always some poor abused creature that needs to be saved. It’s literally their business model. Giant day geckos are so sensitive that their flesh will rip off from human touch, yet the employees would let every little kid who came in the store, tried to handle the “GEICO”. She had wounds on her, had been loose in the store a couple times and had dropped her tail. She was ending up with me, or in the dumpster when she died at a few months old, and they will put in another one. They lie to the customers about the needs of the animal and what it takes to care for them. That being said, I had her in a beautiful bioactive enclosure that was far in excess of what she needed. Her digs were a point of pride in the way that I kept my animals housed, until her enclosure failed us, and I have been taking it hard.

I found an old picture of her and noticed the comment from Tawny Kitaen. The supermodel from the 80’s was a big fan of my animals. It all started with her name-snake. I was going through a divorce and wanted to get myself a pet. My ex-wife had a snake and I really enjoyed taking care of it. I went out looking for a snake of my own like a complete clown at all of the local pet stores. I didn’t know anything about how un-ethical the reptile trade was at the time and I never would’ve done things the same way. I wanted a snake that was very colorful and active. The snake that seemed to gravity towards me was a dead white ball python, which is the complete antithesis of what I was looking for. She was ridiculously expensive, but happened to be on sale half price. When I started looking into her morph, I realized that a female Super Mojave Blue Eyed Lucy would be a very desirable snake for breeding. I started justifying the expense with the thought that someday I would make beautiful pairings with her. I really was completely ignorant to how overpopulated ball pythons are in the pet trade. I was also ignorant to how gross the quest for genetics is and the neurologically impaired animals that it creates. I know better now, but I was lonely, and it really seemed like this white snake was gravitating to towards me.

I was joking to myself that I can’t believe that I’m so lonely that I’m considering buying a white snake when all I wanted was a colorful snake, and just because the thing seems interested in me doesn’t actually mean anything. The lightbulb went off that I was considering a white snake because I was alone. I thought of the Whitesnake song “Here I Go Again”, and just about died. I figured if it was female, I would name her Tawny Kitaen. She ended up being female, and after somebody wigged out about a feeding pic, I made her an Instagram account.

Somehow, the real Tawny Kitaen found my snake. She really became a big fan. she would comment on a lot of of the posts about Tawny, and the other animals. She even shared one of the posts about Tawny feeding after she hadn’t eaten in a long time on her story. It was really sweet, and the wholesome support from the hottest supermodel of my childhood really helped me out through a dark time.

Tawny Kitaen is no longer be with us, and Harrietta Houdini may have pulled an escape act at the cost of her life, but they are both very special to me. I’d like to think that Tawny picked up a new familiar, however that expresses… I’ve also never bred my ball pythons, and never will. It’s just wrong, and I don’t really think that Tawny Kitaen would agree to being paired with Frank Zappa (my male) anyway.