I Will Attend a Meeting of Amateur Herpetologists

Herpetology! From the ancient Greek "Herpeton," meaning "to crawl along the ground." That science of sciences! How long it had been absent from my life...

For you see, Saturday last, while riding Chicago's elevated-locomotive-subterranean-way-rail, I became momentarily disorientated and had the misfortune to accidentally disembark at the Damen Avenue stop on the Blue Line. I realized my horrible mistake instantly!

This was a neighborhood contaminated by young women wearing next-to-nothing, theatrical venues offering rock and/or roll music, and young men sporting hair styles better suited to the Mohawk Tribe of New York State than the City of Big Shoulders! Straightaway, I saw that I must return to the rail-line and leave this place as soon as possible.

Then, delightful awakening of the soul!

As I stood nervously on the platform, on the wall adjacent to the train I espied a posted advertisement for what was evidently a gathering of amateur herpetologists! It read:

10/19/06
At Memories, 4358 N. Cicero
A show featuring
-Emerald Lizards-
-Reptoids-
-Blissters-

Memories, indeed! As I read the posting, several fond memories rushed into my head of my days as a boy spent collecting lizards and snakes in glass jars for use in my own amateur ophidian experiments. Are they not the finest works of the great master? The sweetness of the faces, the gayety of the attitudes, and that inexplicable charm which is mingled with all the defects, render the little figures very diverting and delicate (perchance, even too much so). I felt charged by this posting, and resolved to ressurect my interest in herpetology forthwith.

A mystery, however, remains.

While I have certainly spent many hours in the company of emerald-coloured lizards, and can intuit that "reptoids" must be the new herpetological vernacular for "reptiles", I am entirely at a loss as to what "Blissters" might be. No doubt it is a new term devised in the (grantedly lengthy) interval between my last immersion in this field of study, and the present time. However, I have several theories:

• That the two "sses" are a reference to the sound a snake makes when it hisses , and so this is a "hip" way to reference the study of snakes.
• That this is a gradient determination of any animal with a blistered hide.
• That the term references, concurrently, the blisters left on one's hands after handling snakes and lizards, and the "bliss" one can feel when satisfactorily immersed in herpetological study.

Either way, I shall essay to determine the truth of the matter, pith helmet and looking glass in hand, at this upcoming convention at the determined time and place! Huzzah!!!