Like Cats and Dogs: The Moth Radio Hour
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What themes about pet ownership are explored in this episode?
Hey, it's Chloe Salmon from The Moth. As a story director, I talk to a lot of people who say they want to tell a story but don't know where to start. A tip I give them? Get specific. What's a moment that meant something to you? Your first home run? That road trip with your dad? The time you bombed at the talent show? Start there, then build on that foundation. You can find tips to help you identify those moments along with prompts to inspire them in The Moth's new guided journal, My Life and Stories. Whether you want to find your own story, reflect on your life, or even give it as a gift, you can order your copy at themoth.org forward slash my life and stories. That's themoth.org forward slash my life and stories.
This is a Moth Radio Hour. I'm your host, Alistair Bain. In this episode, we'll be celebrating the bonds between people and animals. I live in Colorado with an assorted pack of dogs and foster dogs, including two formerly feral dogs and a pit bull that carries his teddy bear with him wherever he goes. I've learned so much from my own pets about courage, resilience, loyalty, and I even developed some fairly advanced reupholstering skills because sometimes a sofa will be mistaken for a rather large chew toy. In this hour, we will hear seven storytellers share stories about themselves and their relationship to the animal kingdom. Catherine Palmer told this first story at an open mic story slam we produced in Pittsburgh, where we partner with public radio station WESA.
Live from the Rex Theater, here's Catherine Palmer.
I'm a city person. I wasn't born in the city. I moved to the city, to the south side of Pittsburgh, as an adult. Now, city people expect a couple things. light and noise. And we get pretty nervous if it gets too dark or too quiet. Now, we're the only people in our family that live in the city. My husband's four sisters live in dark, quiet places. And the darkest, quietest home is my sister-in-law, who runs a hostel with her husband and her two little girls. in the middle of nowhere. Now, this kind of nowhere is where there's no cell service, no internet access. And I found myself there one night after having been in a meeting in Philly, which is a very nice, noisy, bright city. And we had a lovely dinner, and we were waiting to check in the next hostel guest, and it was getting later.
And that was a problem because my niece was going to have a performance that night, and somebody was going to have to stay behind. So I volunteered. What could go wrong? I would be in a very dark, quiet place with no cell reception letting strangers into the house. Perfect. So I waved them off and I went to the living room to read a book. Turns out I can't read if it's completely quiet. I need a little bit of noise. So I headed to the kitchen to get a drink because you can do that in the dark and quiet. And I stopped in my tracks because there was a snake in front of me. not a big snake, like a foot long, like maybe a baby snake, and the cat was pawing at it on the kitchen floor. So this is one of those moments where you stop and you're trying to make sense of something that absolutely does not make sense.
So I assessed the situation. There was a baby snake on the floor. At least I assumed it was a baby. It was very small. The cat seemed to be involved in how it got there and oddly familiar with it. And my nieces were known to have strange pets up in their room. So I had to assume there was a mother snake that had a baby. But at this point, I realized I know very little about the reproductive habits of snakes. And with no internet access, this wasn't going to change. So the only reasonable explanation is that this was a pet snake, or the baby of a pet snake, and I needed to keep it safe from the cat. So three things were clear. I was not going to touch this snake. I did need to do something to keep the cat away from it.
And this was a perfect opportunity to become the favorite aunt. I could save the pet baby snake. So I got a clear casserole dish out of the cabinet and put it over the snake.
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