I may not look overly thrilled, but this was my first time ever handling live snakes! A throwback to my days behind the counter at the infamous Polyester Books in Fitzroy (circa mid-2000s). On this day, author Raymond Hoser did an in-store to promote his books on Victorian police corruption. Hoser is also a snake and reptile handler, so he decided to bring some of his pets in with him. It was a fun day, we had a bowl of snake lollies on the counter to give out to customers, and we also bought some toy rubber snakes and hid them inside magazines and behind books, to try and scare browsers into thinking one of the real snakes had gotten away!
This photo was taken moments after Hoser suddenly dumped a whole bundle of the snakes on me. After the initial shock, I actually found them to be quite a pleasant sensation, some of them crawled inside my shirt and wrapped around my torso, and another curled around my neck and stuck his head in my shirt pocket to take a little nap! Very cute. It definitely helped increase my appreciation for the beauty and personality of snakes, though I don't agree with the surgical removal of their venom glands, which Hoser had done to many of these.
