I was so fixated on the wide backside of the gray elephant that I didn’t even see the snake. I don’t often come across a life-size baby elephant – real or otherwise – at auction so I had to stop to take a look-see.
The elephant appeared to be made out of some type of stone or fiberglass, painted gray. From where I stood, I could only see its tail and fanny, so I went around the side to see its face. That’s when I saw the snake – a diamond-back rattler long and wavy on a table just in front of the elephant. I was so close that if it had been real, it would’ve bitten me.
Snakes scare me and my worst nightmare is to be entangled in one. Fortunately, I didn’t have a snake-attack problem at the auction house.
This snake – also seemingly made of the same type of material as the elephant – was minding its own business. Seeing both of the animals near each other made me wonder if there were other man-made creatures lurking in other rooms – waiting not to pounce but to be bought and taken home, or bought and re-sold.
As I searched, I found more and more of them, and they were not necessarily cute little animal figurines to sit on a tabletop. Most were large and looked so real it was unnerving.
Here’s what I found at just one auction house:
