Well, we had a python on purpose when my husband and I got together, he'd owned it previously. I liked that one, she was used to being handled and was fairly calm. She escaped one time for weeks, and my husband, who was more wary of her than I was, worried about her crawling in bed with us at night. One night I got up to go to the bathroom, and there I am, on the toilet, and I glance over... and there's the snake, just lying there, stretched out next to the bath tub. We got her back in the cage no problem. She didn't scare me at all. We had her about four years before she died. Not sure why she died.

The second one we had we inherited from the person who was renting our guest house when they moved out. That python wasn't used to being handled, and she moved kind of erratically. I was trying to get her used to handling, taking her out in the evenings, and then she got confused one time and bit me. I couldn't get back on the horse after that. It didn't hurt too much (and truth is, I know now, if you have a snake you're likely to get bitten at least once or twice by mistake), but the absolute sheer terror I experienced (completely irrational) ruined me for working with her. My husband had a guy who takes care of/handles all kinds of snakes come and get her.

Okay, I have to know, how did you get bitten by a baboon, of all things? The strangest thing that's ever happened to me was getting bitten by a donkey (which I'm told is their way of being playful).