On the Homefront

You all want to know how the snakes are doing, right? And how my complicated relationships with the other remaining gods and goddesses are faring? Probably not, but I'm going to write about these intimate personal details anyway. The human interest touch, if you like.

Green Mamba has been very quiet for some time. This usually means the beginning of another revolution, with several attempts to choke me to death, to destroy my nectar cellars and to organize a peaceful sitin in Snakepit Inc., all at the same time. Green Mamba has about five co-conspirators, and they all wear red bandanas which keep sliding down their bodies, so it's not too difficult for me to spot them when they come to kill me. Then I have to gently remind them that I can't be killed, being a goddess, and it's all very sad when they realize that they have to go back and hatch a new plot. To be honest, I'd love them to be successful in the revolution. I have a thick stack of literature on time-shares in the Caribbean and I really like the idea of myself as a retired, modest goddess, but these guys just can't direct themselves, let alone billions of snakes.

The other snakes are doing pretty well, except for Artful Asp. She's coming into her teenage years (or that would be the human equivalent) and she's giving me one headache after another. First it was a desire to become a praying mantiss because she absolutely hated this boa constrictor who had refused her advances, and wanted to both have him and eat him in one go. When she realized that I couldn't make her into a praying mantiss (not in my training), she slithered off in terrible anger and maxed all my credit cards with purchases of artificial nails and rat poison.

Then she watched too much television (my fault, I had left it on), and wanted me to pay for breast enhancement surgery. We had a long discussion about the friction effects of several bumps on her bellyside, the fact that male snakes are not turned on by bumps and the questionable aesthetic effects of having twelve bras along the length of one dainty snake, and finally she gave up. But I see her casting those glances at me which means that something not-so-nice has been added to my nectar for tonight, and I can't have any human visitors for a while. She's vicious, is the little asp, but all of you who cope with teenagers know about that. You gotta love them.

On the divine front, things have been peaceful. I had a very small cocktail party for some of my nearest and dearest and Aphrodite behaved much better than I expected. Only two young men had to be returned to their rightful homes and neither one will be much the worse for wear. Aphrodite is slowing down, I think, but I wouldn't say anything to her face about it. There's only one interesting piece of gossip, which is that someone swore they had seen Ares. I thought he had expired due to lack of adulation, and so did most of the others. I was glad to hear that he might still be up to his old games (when he wasn't waging those silly hot-headed battles), but the gossiper also thought that Ares had gotten religion really bad, and was now leading a Buddhist monastery somewhere in the U.S.. Talk about karma!

I hope the rumor is not true. But these news made me decide to start a website for ex-gods and ex-goddesses. "Where are you now?" sort of thing. We could all exchange recipes for survival in this fundamentalist age and maybe plot a revolution or two.