Imaginary Money Orders and other Reptillian tails

[JustADude]

What's the "friend of jack" verison?

I learned it as "Red touches black, you're okay Jack, Red touches yellow, you're a dead fellow." Works for me, and I often use it when watching movies with snakes. You'd be surprised how many movies use the non-venomous version

Basically, it replaces "venom lack" with "friend of Jack". It's just another way of rhyming it. I like the one I learned simply because the ones with "Jack" make me cringe for some reason.

I'd believe it about the stand-in snakes, too. If they can get away with the look-alike, it's hellaciously safer for everyone concerned.

[Sliceanddice]

i learn red touches black, your ok jack, red touches yellow, your one dead fellow

[Banrion]

My fiance and I have 4 snakes now. I have my lavender and yellow Cali. King who is about 3 years old and just under 5 ft long named Askr. Then we have 2 Columbian red tail boas of unknown age one is about 7ft and the other is only about 6ft, but he is 8 inches around. And finally a Dumeril's boa who is about 8 years old and a professional masseus. We had a 13 ft scrub python up until last year. He was a mean sucker, but he died of unknown causes last December. We also have a red Tegu and 2 cats.

Our reptiles get the majority of 2 rooms. The tegu has an 8' x 4' x 4' cage in our spare bedroom, and the closet in that same room has been tiled and equipped for the scrub. Then in the kitchen, we have the boas together in a cage that is 4.5' on a side hexagon, and about 8' tall. We have no kitchen table, or any sort of dining table at all. Someday, when we have our own house, my fiance wants to make the whole basement his reptarium.

[LizaMarie]

I can understand why people like snakes. They are pretty fascinating, look cool, and come with some taboos that are just delightful to defy. All this makes sense in my head. When I see a snake though, my head goes right out the window. If I even see a crooked stick that vaguely resembles a stick, my heart starts pounding. It's not even that I'm afraid of being hurt by a snake. It's just their presence. Don't understand it, never will. I guess that's ophidiphobia, or whatever snake phobia is. Not that I begrudge snake lovers. I'll just never be one, I guess.

[Princess-Snake]

I am absolutely in love with snakes! Hence my name. I want my own snake someday. My sister absolutely despises them. She loves anything with fur but hates anything with scales because they're "icky and gross."

[MystyGlyttyr]

Snakes and I have an understanding...they stay away from me, I stay away from them, we get along great. I don't LIKE them, but I can respect them. (Worms, on the other hand...)

There was one rather amusing story from my stint with the highway department. I was paired off with "Bobby"...so named because he could be Bobby Lashley from WWE's twin...a huge, muscular, snarling black man who would usually send other members of the crew scurrying for cover. I rather liked him though, so he and I usually got to work together, as he drove a ditch digger and I would flag traffic for him.

There was one day we were out working on a pretty deserted road, cleaning out a stopped-up drain, when suddenly the ditch digger quit, and I could hear Bobby, in a very unmanly, un-Bobbylike voice, shrieking "MYSTY! MYSTY GET IT GET IT!!"

Much hysterics ensued, but I managed to figure out that when he lifted the shovel of his ditch digger, he saw that he had scooped up some sort of small black snake with it, and said snake was now sliding around in the shovel. I didn't know what it was but I could tell it wasn't poisonous (wrong head shape, wrong eyes, etc.), so I told Bobby to just dump it back on the ground. For some reason, Bobby believed to do so was to invite certain doom. So there I am, all five-and-a-half girly teenage feet of me, poking at a foot-and-a-half black snake with my flag, while my big, intimidating, 6'3" partner was cowering in the cab with the DOORS LOCKED. Once I got it out of there, I had to carry it about a quarter mile down the road on the end of my flag before I could convince Bobby that it was safe to continue working.

I didn't tell the other guys about it because Bobby didn't need that razzing...he got plenty from me afterwards.

[K'Z'K]

Whilst in South Africa over the past few months, a friend of mine had two temporary pet snakes (caught locally, then returned)--a puff adder and a black mamba. He caught the mamba with his bare hands...

-K'Z'K

[Dreamstalker]

So there I am, all five-and-a-half girly teenage feet of me, poking at a foot-and-a-half black snake with my flag, while my big, intimidating, 6'3" partner was cowering in the cab with the DOORS LOCKED.

I love snakes, lizards and the like. A cousin in NJ has a bearded dragon, and when my dad and I were out there for Thanksgiving last year I got to hold and feed it. I think it rather liked me, as when let out of his terrarium for exercise he would make a beeline for me in the living room. Had he been allowed to roam at night I probably would have found him on my pillow more than once.

The Twit had (and for all I know still does have) a fear of snakes to the point where she couldn't even look at photos.

[Andara Bledin]

It sounds like something out of a drug smuggling operation, but as far as I know it's perfectly legal, and a heck of a lot easier than shipping the snakes across the border. Go figure.

Canadian customs for mail and shipments is a nightmare (or so a whole lot of Canadians say). A lot of people who live close enough actually have US PO boxes so they can get mailed items faster.

I learned the mnemonic as "Red on black, venom lack; red on yellow, kill a fellow", but apparently everyone else learned the "friend of Jack" version, which I've always consider to be a rather stupid contrivance.

Wow. I learned it a completely different way than the rest of you. Mine was:
Black on Yellow, Jack's a lucky fellow,
Black on Red, Jack will soon be dead.

Snakes rock. I love 'em. My mom, however, is phobic. Once, while meeting at a work friend's before going to a concert, I had arrived earlier and had one of his snakes around my head. My mom got one step in the room and then demanded that I get the snake away from her. *snicker*

^-.-^

[Bliss]

We also have a red Tegu and 2 cats.

those are two scared cats if I seen any

Edit:
I adore snakes, and I had one for a week that we rescued and released in an idoneous place. now that I live on my own someday I'll get a snake. I think I'll try to get a slender green tree snake. I love them, they're cute as hell

[lordlundar]

I didn't tell the other guys about it because Bobby didn't need that razzing...he got plenty from me afterwards.

You're a better person than I. There's no way I would have let something like that slide.

[Banrion]

those are two scared cats if I seen any

Actually, they aren't ever in a position they could get at each other, though the big cat is fascinated by the tegu when he is in his cage. We haven't let the little cat in the Tegu's room to see him yet.