Snake Charmer

A man I know received an e-mail from a woman who was interested in meeting him. She said, "If I were Goldilocks, I'd say you were perfect."  I thought this line was obvious and cheesy, yet clever.  In fact, I was a little jealous because I wish I had thought of it.  By contrast, I received an e-mail from a man who said, "Why do you live so far away?  Your town may be quaint and everything, but don't you know that it's inconvenient for me?  I take mass transit everywhere, because I don't have a car.  I don't have a job, either."  Since I didn't respond, I have no idea whether or not he even had a place to live.  And, actually, no interest in finding out.

Finding the perfect introductory hook is tough.  You want to appear intelligent yet approachable, not too serious, and somewhat flirtatious.  And, then there's me.  I'm usually pretty direct.  Sometimes that works, sometimes not.  I respond when something captures my interest- a funny line, no grammatical errors, blue eyes.  I got an e-mail from a man who was a Herpetologist.  His speciality was snakes.  I confess, I was both repulsed and at the same time fascinated.  "Fifteen minutes,"  I thought.  "Where's the harm in that?"

We met at a local coffee shop.  He was pleasant looking, mild-mannered, in his late forties.  Wire-rimmed glasses.  Blue eyes, always a plus.  Receding blondish hair, thinning on top.  Average height and build.  He had with him what looked like a gym bag.  I asked if he was planning to work out later, thinking that we had that in common.  He looked down at his bag, then back at me, and laughed out loud.  He had a nice laugh.  "That's not a gym bag," he said with a smile.  "That's Horace and Hal and Charlie."

He had brought some of his snake friends to coffee with us.

Horace and Hal were orange and red and black Corn Snakes, and Charlie was a black and white striped King Snake.
"I have twenty five all together," he confided.  "I love snakes, everything about them."

I'm kind of boring.  I've always had dogs and cats and guinea pigs.  I've always wanted a horse.

He reached into his bag and pulled out one of the Corn Snakes.  "This is Hal," he said.  As Hal lazily wrapped himself around his arm, a shudder of revulsion slid up and down my spine.

Some of us are not snake people.

Meanwhile, at the next table, a young girl was sitting with her laptop.  She was pretty, in spite of jet-black dyed hair and really heavy, messy black eye makeup.  She had multiple piercings in each ear, and a pierced nose, lip and eyebrow.  Both arms were colorful, covered with a sleeve- tattooed from shoulders to wrists.  She looked completely enamoured of Hal.  She came over to join us.  "Oh.  Wow.  Like, can I like, touch him and stuff?  He's hella sick."

I guess she was a snake person.  And, oh, goodie.  She also had a pierced tongue.

Before long, the other two snakes were out, and the girl was letting Charlie the King Snake slide up her arm and around her neck.
Snake man had completely forgotten about me.  He had apparently made a love connection, all right- just not with me.  I said "good-bye" when I left, but I'm not sure it even registered.  I'm sure that the snake man and the pierced girl and Hal and Horace and Charlie and all their brethren are quite happy together, wherever they are.

I'm thankful for the fifteen-minute-coffee-date-rule.  I'm thankful for my boring bipolar cat.  I'm thankful snake man didn't study Arachnids.