A few decades ago, an acquaintance of mine had a pet python—or boa constrictor, I'm not sure which, but they both tend to be pretty cuddly (!). Anyway, a small coffee-klatch used to gather most mid or late evenings in the University District Pizza Haven and talk of cabbages and kings, et al.

Herb came in one evening and he was wearing his exotic pet around his waist. It was a coolish evening, so he was wearing a jacket, zipped about halfway up. As he sat there at the table, the snake poked its head out of the jacket and looked around. Looked weird as hell, not to mention just a bit phallic (but with eyes?). The critter seemed to be following the conversation, but it apparently didn't have much to say.

One of the waitresses made periodic rounds of the tables to refill people's coffee cups, and she headed for our table. As she topped off our cups, I'm thinking, "Oh, God! What if she sees the snake!" When she refilled Herb's cup, she looked right at the damned snake, and I was sure there was going to be a window-shattering scream and coffee all over the ceiling.

But no. She looked right at it, her eyes went sort of blank, and she just moved on to the next table. She couldn't have missed it, but I think her brain just wouldn't register it.

Herb eventually had to get rid of it. He said it was getting two big and just a bit dangerous. It liked to play "necktie," and sometimes it got a little too enthusiastic about the game.

He donated it to the Woodland Park Zoo.

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Green Lake, a lovely lake in the north part of Seattle, is a mecca for bikers, joggers, roller skaters, and strollers on a sunny day, and is a real asset to the city. Three and a half miles around, it makes for a good walk or run. And there are a couple of official swimming beaches there, and you can rent rowboats, small sailboats, or water bikes, which I used to do a lot, and get some exercise rowing around the lake. Or on a windy day, sailboards.

Anyway, about ten or so years ago, people started hysterically calling the police and reporting that there were alligators in the lake. There were too many people calling for the authorities to discount that people were definitely seeing something. A careful tour of the lakeshore revealed that there were two cayman inhabiting the reeds at the south end of the lake. Animal control manage to take them into custody, and I think they, too, wound up in the Woodland Park Zoo. They were fairly young, about three-and-a-half or four feet long. They can get up to about six feet, with one species up to fifteen feet.

The assumption was that someone had them as pets and when they got big enough to take out the neighbors' children and pets, the owner released them in the lake. One wonders what they were surviving on. Lots of Canada geese hang out around the lake. And an occasional jogger maybe? I mean, when you keep finding pairs of empty Reeboks sitting there on the jogging path by the reeds, what is one to think?

Don Firth