“Snake, please.” His words, barely audible in the crowded grocery store, demand my attention. I pull my cart over by the frozen chicken and turn to face him. I can see immediately that we are about to have a problem. “Snake, please,” he says, holding out a red rubber snake in his left hand. One snake. That’s not right. I shouldn’t have let him carry them in here today - and on the rare day I forgot to stash a couple of spare snakes in my purse. Since we ran out of his favorite lizards a month or so ago, my kid has taken to spinning two rubber snakes. Always two, and always the same two together. If one breaks, they both go in the trash, to be replaced by another pair. Sometimes he inadvertently lets one go mid-spin, and we find ourselves on a snake hunt. Whenever he loses one, he comes to us for help in the recovery effort, but he can rarely tell us where he was last standing or where he thinks the critter might have landed. This could be