This journal entry was originally written on July 29th of 2010, while my reptiles and I were still residing in a single bedroom of my parents home. While the count of the animals fluctuates, and I now keep them outside of my bedroom, the sentiment remains the same. Enjoy!
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Living in close quarters with animals will teach you nothing if not patience. As it currently stands (after a few unexpected losses, and downsizing for the move), I share my bedroom with three Ball Pythons, sixteen Crested Geckos, and one Leopard Gecko. One can only imagine what the room has looked like over the past sixteen years, constantly transforming to accommodate yet another tank when, just after adding the last one, I swore to myself that there was 'absolutely, positively, no more room.'
A light sleeper in general, I have (over time) become much more adept at continuing to snooze straight through the various bumps, thumps, rustles, clicks, chirps, thunks, and other assorted noises in the night. The one thing I have not adjusted to is... snake pee. (Henceforth referred to by its scientific name, 'urates'.)
Currently, my bed is lofted six feet into the air to allow myself some actual living storage space; all said and done, I use the area under my bed for supplies and clothing, and sleep roughly 18" from the ceiling. Sleeping quarters are cramped, with poor air circulation and heat issues - or, as I call it, "cozy".
It is not quite so 'cozy' at two o'clock in the morning, when I have suddenly come from REM sleep to full consciousness at lightning speed, only to discover that my sinuses and lungs are ON FIRE and I can barely breathe.
Between the nocturnal nature of the animals I keep, the natural out-gassing of waste products, and the very poor circulation of air around my head at night, I regularly find myself waking up in just such a manner. There's no polite way to say it - urates STINKS. It is, basically, a waste form of ammonia; ammonia, as you may or may not know, is the main ingredient in smelling salts. It has become no real surprise to the rest of my family to discover me up and scrubbing tanks in my boxer shorts at three a.m., or crashed on the futon in the living room for the night with my bedroom window open until the area becomes 'livable' again. (It also helps explain why all of the animals are in my room - it's tough to make an argument for having any part of the rest of the house smell like that. Maybe we could keep them in the bathroom?)
It also makes it obvious that the only people who keep animals like that are people that love them.
I have heard many people exclaim, "Oh, isn't it darling!" about a newborn baby - and maybe, to some, it is; wrinkly, purple, crying and screaming and smelling of sour-milk-y vomit... Adorable. For the most part, though, I think there's something about that statement that rings most true for the mother and father; the ones that have been up all night feeding it, changing its diapers, burping it, and singing it back to sleep as best as they can - the ones that changed their lives to have it in their homes.
That's how it is for me with my reptiles; where many people look at them and see a scaly representation of evil itself (which is sometimes how I view newborns, so I'll call it an even trade), I see my own version of a kid - the thing I've worked my life around to keep.
