#68 PUPPY -- A WIGGLING PENCIL Dedicated to Scooter's friend, N.W.

Garter Snake common in Washington State

“It was huge, Mom!”

“Not.”

“Imagine it. A huge flashing streak of red and black and yellow lines mowing down the deep grass right by my foot.”

“Pencil thin, Scooter. You are doing the imagining.”

“Dangerous!”

“Harmless.” I was laughing. “Only, don’t pick one up. They can bite.”

 “It wasn’t funny, Mom.”

 “Yeah, I think it was. You jumped straight up, all four legs lifting like levitating table legs.”

 “You saw that thing, right?”

 “I did. A thin slice of beauty it was.”

“It was like one of your pencils wiggling.”

 “Slithering. Snakes slither. Even that tiny, beautiful garter snake that surprised you has grossly flexible ribs and vertebrae. They have layers of muscle beneath their skin that contract and relax alternatively. That snake’s undulating motion is called ‘slither.’ It slithered by your foot milliseconds before all four of your feet left the ground.”

 “Not that funny, Mom.”

 “Wrong. Scooter, it was. Did you know that while humans have thirty-three vertebrae, and dogs have fifty or so, snakes, depending on the species, have between two and four hundred. Pythons have six hundred. Usually there are more in a snake’s body than in its tail.”

 “Snakes have tails?” Scooter’s interest renewed. “Oh, ha ha,” said he. “Now that’s funny.”

Scooter Sublime, listening (for once)

But he was listening.

 I won’t bore you, the reader, with Scooter’s constant guffawing. But snakes do have tails. They use them to lure prey. Some make their tail look like a worm or spider, inviting unsuspecting birds within striking distance.

 Scooter was disgusted, learning that since snakes don’t need much oxygen to fuel their brain, the head can be severed yet live on even for hours. Same with turtles. A snake’s nervous system continues to function for a good while. It can still bite. “Don’t trust a dead snake, I guess,” I said.

And, Scooter, here’s really good news. Garter snakes eat slugs! And I caution you. While the female only breeds every two or three years, she may well produce twenty or more baby snakes. It takes a couple of years for them to reach maturity, but if they can avoid lawnmowers, they can live up to ten years. Let’s see . . . ten years, twenty or more babies every couple of years . . .

 “Mom! Stop! Do you have to make everything into a lesson?”

 “I don’t. I could just stand here and laugh about watching you nearly jump out of your skin when that twenty-inch wiggling pencil surprised you.”