Her name is Velvet, she\u2019s 10 years old and she\u2019s a bit of a cinema buff \u2014 at least that\u2019s what some people might think of the 4-foot-long snake found near the Gold Town Nickelodeon Theater.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pound warned me she was an escape artist,\u201d Monica Daugherty, the snake\u2019s owner, said. Daugherty, a teacher at Juneau Montessori School, rescued the now-famous movie snake from the Gastineau Humane Society in August. Originally, she thought Velvet would make for an interesting classroom pet. However, this corn snake, lacking venom and only harmful to unwanted house mice, didn\u2019t get a green light from school administrators.<\/p>\n
Instead, Velvet the class pet became Velvet the studio pet, taking up residence in an art studio above the Gold Town theater where Daugherty works on her oil paintings. Then, two weeks ago, Velvet did exactly what the pound warned Daugherty she might do \u2014 escape.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe came in one day, saw a hole in the wall and that was that,\u201d Patrick Race, another tenant inside the Emporium Mall, said. Race was among the first people to find out Velvet didn\u2019t venture too far from her home and instead was living in the walls of the Emporium Mall.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was 3:30 a.m. and my phone starts filling up with text messages from Collette Costa down at the Gold Town Nickelodeon,\u201d Race said. Costa, manager of the Gold Town theater, reached out to several other Emporium space renters early Sunday morning to find out how a snake landed in her office down the hall from her theater.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the everloving (sic) (explative),\u201d the messages from Costa to Race read, \u201cThere is literally a 6-foot snake in the office!!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
It happened at a less than ideal time \u00ad\u2014 the theater was hosting a special \u201cRocky Horror Picture Show\u201d weekend. However, Costa said it may have been the circumstances surrounding the theater\u2019s event that led to finding Velvet. Participants in the show\u2019s live-action portion were using Costa\u2019s office to change in and out of costumes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was a joke, you know, with the Rocky Horror stuff and Halloween,\u201d Costa said. Someone in the office pointed out, nonchalantly Costa added, that it looked like a real snake was in the office. When Costa bent down to pick up what she thought was just a gag, it began to move.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there aren\u2019t snakes in Alaska,\u201d was Costa\u2019s first thought.<\/p>\n
Another person in the office \u201cMacGyvered\u201d a lasso with a stick, some pins and string, Costa said. Then 20 seconds later, the snake was contained in a clear, plastic box.<\/p>\n
Daugherty said she was surprised when Race contacted her to tell her Velvet was still alive. She picked up her escaped pet later that day and said she couldn\u2019t believe Velvet was captured without harm.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just felt so bad it scared the living daylights out of that woman,\u201d Daugherty said.<\/p>\n
Costa said the real surprise was that a snake was on the loose for a week where she worked and she was unaware. The fact that Velvet still calls a room in the Emporium home doesn\u2019t sit too well with Costa, but her real concern is that it doesn\u2019t end up in her office space again.<\/p>\n
Daugherty said two heavy history text books are on guard above Velvet\u2019s glass house. The snake isn\u2019t invited back to the theater, but at least she\u2019ll have something to read instead.<\/p>\n
\u2022 Contact reporter Paula Ann Solis at 523-2272 or at paula.solis@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Her name is Velvet, she\u2019s 10 years old and she\u2019s a bit of a cinema buff \u2014 at least that\u2019s what some people might think of the 4-foot-long snake found near the Gold Town Nickelodeon Theater. \u201cThe pound warned me she was an escape artist,\u201d Monica Daugherty, the snake\u2019s owner, said. Daugherty, a teacher at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":29169,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[75],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-29168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29168"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29168\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29169"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29168"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=29168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}