From the archive, 14 March 1957: Travelling through America with an alligator

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2014/mar/14/america-alligator-pet-travel

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I saw him first on one of the roadside stalls that line the great highways east and west of Florida. It was a fairytale setting. In the shining blue of the sky a flock of pelicans flew, spanish moss hung in drifts, and all around colours gleamed.

The sign above him said "Genuine North American Alligator—$3 with Bucket." In actual fact he was a cayman, imported from South America. The owner of the stall sauntered over and poked him meanly to make him snap. He didn't snap. Instead he winked majestically at me, and I bought him.

Having bought him I was quite at a loss. I was driving up to New York to spend a week in a friend's flat and then sailing back to England on the Queen Elizabeth. I didn't know whether either the flat or the liner was equipped for housing alligators. I didn't want to turn him loose, for I did not know whether he would be happy so far from home, and besides I liked him, so I christened him Ponce de Leon, after the explorer who had discovered the near-by "Fountain of Eternal Youth," and together we set off.

The flat turned out to have a magnificent bathroom and a central heating system more suited to alligators than to humans, so we settled in happily. The next morning it occurred to me that there would probably be a cleaning woman whom I should warn about my pet. That message was one of the hardest I have ever had to compose. I started with an apologetic note "I am afraid there is an alligator in the bathroom," but when I read it as a stranger might it suggested that I might equally well have been driven out by pink elephants in the kitchen. Then I tried a casual request : "Please do not disturb the alligator in the bath," but that was just as odd. I settled for a cryptic message: "Do not worry about my pet. He is in the bathroom and will not harm you."

When I came back from my walk the coloured char, who had obviously been watching for me came waddling down the passage, wheezing with laughter.

"Say, Missy," she gasped, "Ah sho' am glad yo' warned me. What yo' Momma say when yo' get that home to her?"

I explained to her that alligators are ideal pets: you feed them only once a week, they make no noise, and they keep strangers at bay. She shook more than ever at this, and for the rest of the week whenever I went past would pop out from some cubby-hole or other with a conversational giggle.

I found the same reaction everywhere and enjoyed myself immensely. A pet alligator knocks down as many barriers as a clumsy hurdler. I had only to ask in a drugstore for a raw hamburger "for my alligator" to make a shopful of friends, and my request at a library for a book on alligators "as I have one at home and want to know what sex it is" was an equal success.

My next worry was what my cabin-mates on the Queen Elizabeth were going to say to Ponce de Leon, who by now was called Ponce for short. He and I were getting on very well together. When I stroked the back of his neck he would relax and shut his first pair of eyelids that cut out the light but left him alert to any movement. Then, when quite somnolent, the scaly pair would come down and he would sleep.

On the ship we had a tremendous piece of luck. The other three members of my cabin were a mother and two young daughters, who thought a baby alligator in the cabin the most exciting part of the whole trip.

At lunch one day my neighbour asked a question that worried me. What was the Customs going to say? Perhaps alligators were classed with parrots and parts of motorcars on the notice that one is always handed to read. Perhaps there would be a fantastically high import duty or a long period of quarantine, both equally awkward.

Well, it is impossible to smuggle an alligator under one's clothing, and I decided on absolute honesty. I made out a list of all the things I had bought during my stay and at the bottom I wrote "one baby alligator." When we came to the barrier I placed my suitcases on the counter and held his bucket in my hand. The Customs officer handed me the board and I skimmed down it —no mention of alligators; in return I handed him my list and he skimmed down that. I waited. There was no flicker on his face. With a weary gesture he marked my suitcases and I passed on. I never knew what he made of the last item on the list, but I blessed the recent fashion which had dictated that a smart lady should carry, as an accessory, a large white plastic bucket bag.