Don't Freeze My Future Pet!

     I'm a 21 year old, poor college student who works part time, and lives at home to finish school early and get ahead in my future career.  To me snakes are the quintessential deadly beauty, and while I have no inclination to get within 20 feet of a venomous or constricting snake outside of captivity, the idea of owning a non-venomous, non-constricting, and non-aggressive pet snake has been bouncing around in my head for years.  That is, until my boyfriend and I passed the reptile tanks in Pet Smart, and I spotted a beautiful orange and yellow striped baby corn snake.  As soon as I saw him, I was in love.  And love could be mine for a measly $50. 
     Naturally, my semi ophidiophobic boyfriend and mother were horrified when (after doing a lot of research on the nature, habitat, needs, and responsibilities of owning a corn snake, as well as making several successive trips to Pet Smart to get advice from the reptile experts and price out supplies, food, etc) I announced my brilliant plan to adopt a pet snake and bring it home.  To be fair to my mother and boyfriend, I had a plan.  The plan was simple: keep the snake downstairs in the basement that is my room, where it would stay until I took it out of its tank, and my mother would never have to see it after I brought it home.  Unfortunately, such a plan was never to be. 
     "You're going to leave to visit your boyfriend one day, and when you come back you're going to find a frozen snake in the freezer," my mother warned in a serious tone.  Regrettably, as I soon discovered after arguing for weeks on the subject, my mother was dead serious.  The minute I left the house, my mother would kill my pet, just so it wouldn't be in the house anymore. 
     So, still hoping to own a pet corn snake (one that wouldn't get an automatic death sentence just because I took it home) before I finish my Bachelors and Masters degree in three years, I'm starting a petition to convince my mother that not only should I be allowed to adopt a baby pet snake (as long as it is non-venomous, non-constricting, not an aggressive breed, and stays downstairs with virtually no hope of escaping upstairs), but that she should not freeze it.  Please help me stop my mother from freezing my future pet!  Please sign my petition.