Trouble for the Tidy Bowl man

[KG]

man lassos the python lurking in his toilet. He tugs, and tugs, and tugs . . .
By LEONORA LaPETER, Times Staff Writer
Published February 24, 2005


ST. PETERSBURG - It was almost 9 a.m. Tuesday and Shannon Scavotto already was running late for work when he opened the toilet to throw out a tissue.

Inside was a snake as thick as a child's wrist, its diamond-shaped head sticking 10 inches out of the toilet.

Scavotto, 30, grabbed his camera phone to call someone, then snapped a few shots of the snake with the tissue paper on its head.

He called the maintenance department for his building on 4th Avenue S, and they said someone would be right over. He called animal control, but its snake expert was on vacation. He called a snake rescue, but they wanted $150.

So Scavotto took matters into his own hands.

He fashioned a noose out of some PVC pipe and string and grabbed a dark green pillowcase. By now the snake had receded back into the bowels of the toilet. As Scavotto's wife, Beth, and 3-year-old, Ashlynd, looked on, the snake poked its head out again. Scavotto got the noose around its neck and pulled the string taut.

Then started pulling. And pulling. And pulling. And the snake kept coming.

"Get its tail into the pillowcase," he yelled to his wife.

"Where's the tail?" she asked.

Scavotto realized he had about 5 feet of snake and it was still coming.

"It was one of those five levels of realization," he said. "How big is this snake?"

At about 6 feet, the snake's tail appeared and Beth got it into the pillowcase. Then they put the iridescent gray, silver and black snake into a barrel offered by the maintenance worker.

MORE>>> pic included!
http://www.stpetersburgtimes.com/2005/02/24/Southpinellas/Trouble_for_the_Tidy_.shtml

[Spinzonner]

1. Some people taking snaking a toilet way too literally