It was a good way to escape from all the drama, he claimed, though the same escape caused more drama by alarming my grandfather.
You know, I think everyone knows that it sucks to be a kid. When my folks were young, it seemed that everybody else was in control of their lives. For many of us, I’d say childhood is finally remembered as being a time without responsibility or worry. However, that wasn’t my dad’s childhood experience at all! When he was only about ten years old, his family life was at the peak of crazy. His dad – my grandfather – was a raging alcoholic! That man often threatened my father, and had to be removed from the house several times by the police. My dad’s oldest sibling was a drug addict too, and tortured him for years. The only real break that my father had from all of my family craziness was collecting and hanging out with snakes that he caught in his backyard! In fact, he had his own little reptile zoo in his bedroom. It was a good way to escape from all the drama, he claimed, though the same escape caused more drama by alarming my grandfather. As he would always complain about the awful air quality in the house before blaming it on my dad’s critters, my poor dad just had to deal with the claims. As a kid, I don’t think my dad understood how the air temperature control device was being affected by a few pets! I know he told me about how he tried to repair the issue by hanging air filters in his room, and regularly grooming the reptiles as best as he could just to reduce the odor. Overally, his efforts didn’t end up being in vain, but he didn’t see much my grandfather as he got older. Maybe that’s for the best?