In any other city my place of employment - a bed and breakfast - would be unique, but here in St. Augustine, Florida, unique becomes weird very quickly. For those of you who were brought up with a less-than-thorough education a brief history lesson:
Many Americans know about Jamestown - the first English settlement in the North American continent. Well, big woop. Who cares about Jamestown - the 2nd oldest settlement in America. It's not even a real town! YEARS before Jamestown was settled Pedro Menendez landed here and settled the town of St. Augustine.
St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States. (So there, Jamestown!) And don't even start with Thanksgiving in Plymouth, PUH-LEEZE.
We have almost 450 years of history here. As you can imagine ghost stories abound in our old city. And the oldest inn in the oldest city has its own ghost stories. From time to time we have psychics, sensitives, ghost-chasers, and paranormal investigators staying with us. It's gotten so common that the owner has finally put a
"ghost stories" link on our website, although you have to hunt for it. Even though this is Halloween week, tonight's story is not about ghosts; it's about some other strange visitors we had at the inn recently. I heard about these guests the morning after they checked in.
I was getting my morning cup of coffee and Kelly, the Inn's manager, waved me over to the Front Desk. Her eyes gleamed as she asked, "Has anyone told you about our guests in the Dummett* (pronouced Dum-mit) Room?"
"No," I said. "What's going on?"
"Yesterday afternoon our guests were checking in and asked if the room was pet friendly," she said.
I frowned. We do allow pets in some of our rooms, but only ground floor rooms with outside entrances and only with prior approval. I knew this was a problem right away; the Dummett Room is on the 3rd floor. No way would we allow any pets up there. Kelly grinned and continued her story.
"I tried to explain that we restricted the rooms because of allergies and the extra cleaning we always have to do," she said. "They told me, 'No problem, our pets don't shed.' So I'm thinking it must be birds of some kind, and told them we couldn't have birds either because of the noise. I was starting to get worried because we were full and I didn't have a pet-friendly room for them. They were very cheerful and said their pets weren't birds either. I finally had to ask just what kind of pets did they have."
Kelly stopped and stared at me. I shook my head; I had no idea.
"Snakes," she whispered.
"Snakes?" I whispered back. I was trying not to shriek.
"Yes," she said. "They said they had $10,000 worth of snakes. They had just been to a convention. They couldn't leave them in the car overnight; the snakes would die. They had to be in a climate-controlled space."
"Snakes?" I said. "More than one?" I was getting a real creepy feeling all over my skin.
"Yes," she said. "They had 15 of them. All boa constrictors. Some were babies, most were small, but there was one large snake about 6 feet long."
"15 snakes?" I said. I should be a detective with these kinds of interviewing skills.
"You should have seen it," Kelly said. "They brought in all these plastic tubs and containers and stacked them over by that wall."
I jumped and looked at the wall. There was nothing there, but just the thought of what HAD been there...
"You let them check in?" I said.
"All the snakes were locked in the tubs; they even had bungee cords around the tubs. Most of the snakes were also in cloth sacks. You couldn't see them through the plastic; you wouldn't even know what was in the tubs unless someone told you. Besides, they had already paid for their reservation," she said.
"I know," I agreed. Sometimes you just have to say yes.
The guests were a married couple who had just been to the Reptile Breeders Convention in Daytona Beach - evidently a HUGE event. They raised boa constrictors and sold them. They were on their way home to Louisiana. Well, THAT explained a lot. (No offense, Louisiana, but when a large portion of your area is bayou a.k.a. swamp, you know that you're going to be lumped in with snakes. Besides, did you ever see that show
The Exterminator on A&E? Filmed in...Louisiana!)
Once they had permission they brought the tubs in one or two at a time and stacked them in our lobby. Kelly said the creepiest part was after all the tubs were stacked, you could hear the snakes hissing. HEEBIEJEEBIES. No one else seemed to notice; a few other guests checked in while the tubs were stacked in the lobby and just ignored them.
"So where are the snakes now?" I asked while I rubbed my hands up and down my arms.
"They stacked all the tubs in the closet in their room!" she said. "They went out to dinner, had a nice time, and had a nice quiet evening at the Inn."
The process was reversed that morning after the couple had their breakfast and packed to leave. They brought the tubs down the three flights of stairs one by one and stacked them in the lobby. They showed one of the babies to Kelly and some other employees who were crazy enough to want to look. I stayed in the kitchen and peeked around the door. Then they took the tubs - one by one - out to their car. They really were very nice people and there was no mess or any problem with the extra visitors. In fact, they had such a good time I bet they'll want to stay with us next year after the Reptile Breeders Convention in Daytona Beach! I'll be taking that day off....
That afternoon Kelly and I were talking about our unique visitors. She said, with a perfectly straight face, that she was glad there was no problem, because she had to get ready for the ghost-hunters who were renting the entire third floor for the next two nights.
15 boa constrictors one night and ghost-hunters the next - just another day at the Inn.
*pronounced Dum-mit - named for the Dummett family who owned the Inn in the mid-1800's.
.JPG)
