The life and death of the Snake that lived with the England family

For those of you who don't know about the snake that dwells and slithers in this house of ours, I will give you a quick version of the long of it.
Aaron called me one day from Bear Lake while he was with his dad and asked me for a snake. I have to tell you a little bit about my son so you can perhaps see my dilemma. Aaron had a pet rat that his father bought for him that lasted two weeks and it died. He was devastated and we had a funeral for it in the back yard. Apparently, we didn't dig the grave deep enough and the next day the dog was playing with the dead rat which added to Aaron's devastation. Next came the guinea pig and he was very sweet, yet completely stinky. Aaron took the guinea pig to his father's house while we were on vacation to Canada and we never really brought him back, he later died and once again Aaron was devastated. Keeping in mind that I gave in a little too often with the animals due to the fact I was trying to fill in some of the guilt I felt during that time period for my children experiencing a divorce.
So...last summer the phone rang at least 10 times with the same question "mom, can I have a snake?" my first response was "NO WAY". Snakes scare me, they are in NO way cute or adorable. The thought of a snake in my house made me completely grossed out. After the 10th phone call and my son pleading into the phone, he told me he would get one that ate crickets....I caved...bad idea.
We met at Pet Co the following day and before I got there the decision to get the ball python was made (it eats live mice). For any of you who have seen Aaron happy and excited about something it leaves you weak and unable to say no. The whole way home I was completely freaked out because there was a snake in the back of my vehicle and now I would share an existence with it.
THE FIRST TIME IT ATE FOOD
This was a day that will remain one in my mind for the rest of my life. The lady at Pet Co stated that the python was a baby and needed to eat fuzzies first. I had no clue what on earth a fuzzy was until I went to purchase one. A fuzzy is a baby mouse that is just barely getting it's fur. I asked for the fuzzy and the lady brought it out, she said "I need you to look at this and let me know that, this is what you want" I said " no, please, I will trust you" she wouldn't accept that answer and I was forced into looking into the brown sack at this little cute mouse. After I peaked in he said "please arlene, do not feed me to that snake"
With a heavy heart I took Stewart Little home and instructed Abbey to not look into the bag knowing that she would not approve of this cute little creature being eaten by a snake. What do kids do when their parents instruct them not to do....she peaked and started crying. The lady at the store told us that we needed to separate his eating from his living so Aaron plopped him into the bathtub and put the baby mouse in there with him. It took him two hours to eat that darn mouse the whole time Abbey was in tears and even Aaron was starting to get choked up...finally he ate it.
For the majority of the time the snake was pretty mellow and you could hardly tell that he was even around, other times I would look into aaron's room and that darn snake would hiss at me. It didn't like me and I didn't like it right back.
One day I was approaching the house on a night after work and I was greeted at the door by Aaron who said "mom, don't be mad" for some reason that phrase automatically puts me on guard. "The snake got out" fear, anger, and the sudden urgency to wet my pants all came at the same time. The question that kept lingering in my mind was..how would we sleep in a house with a run-away snake? It took Aaron two days and he had him back in his little habitat and life when on as normal. In the mean time we duct taped the lid of the snake's cage closed, that thing was not getting out again, or so we thought. We left for Canada in the middle of January and when we came back, the same words escaped from Aaron's mouth...."my snake got out" This time JJ (that's his name, I forgot to tell you that part) was out for a month.
I crawled into bed one night and 20 minutes later I heard a scream that pierced the silence of the night, it was Cierra and she had found the snake slithering on the floor...by this time we knew he was starving so I went and hid in the other room while the kids swept him up with the broom and the dust pan. I have to give it to him, he was a very intelligent snake!
On his little month long adventure with free reign of the house I think he must have gotten sick. We fed him a mouse and he ate it right up, a week later we fed him another mouse that remained in his cage with him for 5 days before the mouse died. This morning I asked Aaron to check on his snake and he was gone. Aaron took it pretty well, the first thing out of his mouth was "he's in heaven" Do I miss the snake, NO WAY!! do I miss how happy he made my son..YOU BET! We will bury him in the back yard (a little deeper than the last pet) and we will have some long-term memories of this little vanishing snake. I do not see another snake in our future ever again, and I never did watch him devour a mouse, I am just glad I am at the top of the food chain!