Snakes in the lunch box

I wrote this in response to the comment by 'Bru' to my previous blog.

I was in class 5, so perhaps I was around 10 years old. My school, which was on the outskirts of the city, had many acres of fields and gardens around it. One afternoon, I was sitting on the grass, watching some senior students play throwball. I clearly remember scratching the ground beside me with a stick, and unearthing what looked to me like small tubers or plant bulbs. There were about four or five of them. They were less than an inch in diameter, and what made them different from ordinary tubers was, they were very soft and they appeared to be pulsating. My sister is a biology enthusiast. I vaguely remember that I wanted to take them home and show them to her. The only container I could get was my empty lunch box. Naturally, I put these interesting objects into it and carried them home.

I dont remember clearly what happened at home. The version I get to hear from time to time is that I left the lunch box in my book case. After a few days, the room started smelling really bad. When my mother searched for the source of this stench, she discovered little dead snakes and eggs in the lunch box.

For years I didn't believe what my mother and sisters told me. Perhaps my mother had thrown away the contents of the box by the time I came home from school, or more likely, threw the lunch box out. I insisted that I had never brought home snake eggs, and definitely not baby snakes. They were something else. But once on discovery channel, I happened to see snake eggs, and from the way they were being handled, I knew what they must feel like to touch. And it then dawned upon me that what I had picked up that day were indeed snake eggs!

But why did I keep them in the book case? Why did I not show them to my sister? Did I forget all about them once I put it there? I have no idea! Now I feel terrible to think of the poor snake babies hatching into a dark suffocating box and never seeing the light of day! On the other hand, what would have been my mom's reaction if she had opened it and found live snakes in it?? Better not think about it now!