Call it a love story.
A large python was found slithering around a North Carolina Chili’s parking lot — reuniting with its owner two months after it had gone missing.
The snake — a cream-colored ball python — was picked up by the Shallotte Police Department following calls about a “large snake in the area” of the Tex-Mex chain.
Responding officers managed to scoop up the serpent safely, presuming it to be a lost pet — ball pythons are native to the Tar Heel State — and posted images to their Facebook page, asking anyone with information to reach out.
A day later, the beast was back in the hands of its happy owner, Christian Scheil, who described it as “the best snake anyone could ever have.”
“That beautiful snake is my baby girl, Una,” Scheil told WECT. “I’ve been missing her deeply for the past two months.”
Scheil thinks the snake must have been hiding out in her car for nearly two months, and happened to escape when she stopped at Chili’s on Tuesday.
She called finding out that Una had been found “one of the best days of my life.”
“I didn’t sleep because I was missing her and I went into depression and was crying hysterically,” she said. “What a lot of people don’t know or realize is that losing a reptile is the same as losing a dog or a cat for another person.”
The snake appears to be a bit dehydrated and exhausted, Schiel said, but is otherwise happy and healthy.
“She has rubs or burns on her which I’m gonna treat tonight with some iodine and Polysporin and she was very dehydrated,” Schiel told WECT.
“I had to give her a little bath with electrolytes in it and she was just chugging water but other than that she’s a happy girl.”
