Lost And Found Jasper

I'm sure many of you can sympathize with that feeling of dread- you tear your snake's viv apart, and he isn't there. Anywhere. The only thing that kept me from going totally insane last night when I went to check on Jasper, who I hadn't seen in a while, who was not in his viv!!! was the fact that he's in a Critter Cage with the sliding locking lid and 5 million lid inspections later still did not reveal a way to escape. So he had to be in there. I removed everything- two stone hides, his big fluffy six foot long vine, his climbing branch/hide. I sifted all the aspen maybe 20 times. Not there. In a ten gallon! I'm telling you, I would NOT be happy telling everyone I'd lost my snake. I especially would not be happy telling Carol I lost her precious baby. Could he be in the climbing branch? There was one limb that seemed to be walled off, but what if there was a small hole into it I couldn't feel or see? That was my only hope. I'd just advised some panicking soul a couple weeks ago that if the snake is not in the viv, and you are sure it didn't escape, it's in the climbing branch, and sure enough, a couple days later, it was back in the viv, safe and sound. I am not that patient, however. The missing snake, Jasper, my boyeeeeee, my favorite of all the new ones, would eat at me until I had a resolution, one way or another. Just before I went to sleep, I had an idea. What if I sawed the limb off? I decided to wait till morning. I woke up at 1:30 and 4:30 AM to check- but he wasn't back in his viv. Then this morning, the first thing I did even before brushing my teeth was to take the hide out of his viv, find the hack saw, and gingerly cut the limb off. Voila! There was my missing baby, safe and sound in his tiny hollow limb. What a relief. Prayers _do_ work!!

I'm a tree surgeon!