You’re Having A Much Better Day Than This Woman

Woman visits ER to try to get her pet snake out of her earlobe

Sometimes, we can all use a good dose of perspective. For example, both of my kids might be home sick today, but at least they aren’t getting their friends sick. Or: yes, either my cat or my dog pooped on my bathmat this morning, but at least it wasn’t on my pillow. And now we can add: sure, the world is crumbling around us, but at least I don’t have a snake in my ear.

Meet Ashley Glawe. On Monday, Ashley had what I hope to God is a unique experience. She got her pet snake stuck in a hole in her earlobe.

Ashley told Scary Mommy that her ball python, Bart, got into her gauged earlobe before she could do anything about it: “It was too late because of how fast he darted through.. if it was a slither OF COURSE I would have noticed….” She took a photo of herself and Bart in the emergency room and posted it to Facebook. Since Monday it has been shared over 30,000 times, with the most common reactions being either “HAHAHAHAHAHAHA,” or “How and why and how and no.”

Some commenters had advice for how Ashley could get the snake out herself, like lubing him up with oil and pulling. “Tickel [sic] his butt he will slink out,” offered another. Yes, Ashley, you should have oiled him up and tickled his butt. In fact, that advice would solve 75% of the world’s problems.

It didn’t take long, of course, before Keyboard Warrior Nation took notice and shuffled in to tell Ashley that she was stupid for getting a snake stuck in her ear. One helpful friend to all named Angela even accused her of animal abuse and said “I actually hate you because your this stupid.” To which we all say: *You’re.

And since our nation is now one of amateur sleuths who suffer from severe paranoia, there was of course a commenter who accused her of staging the whole thing. Earlobe and snake specialist Eve said, “I do not buy for a second that this snake managed to somehow sneak through there undetected. There cant have been any jewellery [sic] in there and, at that size, a lobe without a tunnel or plug woukd [sic] just hang and would not look like something through which to climb. Ridiculous selfie effort gone wrong? The snake is not the dumb one here. I genuinely thought that the unwritten rule of never inserting your pet into any part of your body was unwritten because nobody would ever need telling not to do it.”

Listen, do we think there are people out there who would, in fact, try to get a snake through a hole in their ear and then post a selfie? Absolutely. Do we think Ashley is one of them? No, we do not. And neither does her friend Julie, who responded with, “Well since I was sitting right there when it happened I can assure your judge mental [sic] – bullying remarks- that this was not for a stupid selfie.”

Not to mention the fact that in a second photo she posted, Ashley used hashtags about how much she loves her snake and replied to many comments saying how grateful she was that he was okay.

Also, that is not the face of someone who is thrilled with their unexpected success.

According to Julie, Bart made it out of Ashely’s earlobe unharmed: “The doctor cut her ear a little bit – then they used vaseline and string another doctor used a little plastic tool and they stretched her ear – then he came out -!!” As for Ashley, she said that her ear was “a little irritated but fine.”

So all is well. Snake and ear are fine, and we learned a little something about snakes, holes, and the speed at which they can get into them, knowledge that I think we can all agree is exceedingly helpful. We’ve also got a great story to add to our parental scoldings:

“Mom, it’s not fair! Everybody is going to Stacey’s party except me!”

“Listen here, young lady. There are people out there with snakes in their ears. Snakes! I’d like you to think about that the next time you want to complain about whether or not life is fair.”

Thanks, Ashley. Give Bart an extra butt tickle for us.