C’mon. Could you have come up with this guy in your wildest imagination? I mean, if you hadn’t seen anything like it before.

Even though we see lots of amazing stuff on TV and in movies, there’s really no substitute for real live experiences. This week, our local library brought the Reptile Man over to show us his pets.

Well, not exactly pets – he runs what he calls a Serpentarium, which houses, as you might guess, snakes, lizards, turtles, an alligator or two, and the like. Something I wouldn’t have gone out of my way to see. But the way he talks so expertly, so lovingly, of these creatures, well, you can’t help but fall in love with them too.

Especially when, after the show, you get to pet the 4 foot alligator, the 10 foot banana-yellow snake (that takes 7 kids to hold) or the knobby tortoise that wanders boldy through throngs of children, searching for dandelions to munch.

I did notice that he didn’t let us pet the rattlesnake or the king cobra, but that was fine by me.

One lizard (a skink, I think) can go without eating for A YEAR. He stores fat in his tail. Tell me you aren’t impressed!