Remember when your mom told you that a snake would come up and bite you if you sat on the toilet too long? If that’s not a cautionary tale you grew up with, try this one on for size: Employees at a San Diego PR firm were terrorized by a snake that slithered out of their toilet this week.
Where the snake came from, you and I will never know, but what’s important is that when Stephanie Lacsa of Vertical PR and Marketing went to plunge what she thought was an overflowing toilet, a rainbow boa slithered out and was all “yo, I don’t come to your house trying to kick you out, so maybe you should just mind your own business, lady.”
Lacsa and business partner Holly Wells were so shocked by the fact that a snake was living in their toilet that they waited until animal control showed up to remove it before they wrote a press release about the incident (but being a PR firm, they did release one). Here’s what Lacsa said about what happened when she noticed the “water level was a little too high” in the firm’s “private bathroom.”
Thinking quickly, she grabbed a toilet plunger and within a few moments of plunging, she noticed something emerging from the toilet bowl. “I thought my eyes were deceiving me,” Lacsa said. “But as soon I saw the flicker of its tongue, I definitely knew that it was in fact a large snake heading straight towards me.”
Lacsa, who has a self-admitted aversion to snakes, stated “I ran out of the bathroom screaming louder than I’d like to admit and taped the door shut until the City of San Diego Animal Control arrived to wrangle the snake. The animal control officer said that she had never witnessed anything like this in her career. She referred to the incident as ‘The Stuff of Urban Legends’ and I would have to agree. This is every person’s worst nightmare!”
I don’t know. My worst nightmare is a world without burritos, but I guess a snake in the toilet is probably numbers two through five. Everyone’s fine and luckily the snake didn’t come out while someone was on the toilet, but it’s still terrifying, especially since it’s likely that the snake had been living in the sewers for weeks before it decided to make its internet debut.
According to the press release (which reminded me that Vertical PR is the best PR firm for all of my PR needs), the snake will be taken care of and hopefully placed in a long home. A loving home, Wells hopes, where the toilet lids are kept tightly secured.
Lead image via Shutterstock, all other Images via Vertical PR+Marketing