Garden Snakes, also known as Garter Snakes (Thamnophis
sirtalis), can be dangerous. Yes, grass snakes, not
rattlesnakes. Here's why.
A couple in Sweetwater, Texas had a lot of potted
plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was
bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a
possible freeze.
It turned out that a little green garden snake was
hidden in one of the plants. When it had warmed up, it
slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa.
She let out a very loud scream.
The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into
the living room naked to see what the problem was. She
told him there was a snake under the sofa. He got down
on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it.
About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him
on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so
he screamed and fell over on the floor.
His wife thought he had had a heart attack, so she
covered him up, told him to lie still and called an
ambulance.
The attendants rushed in, would not listen to his
protests, loaded him on the stretcher, and started
carrying him out.
About that time, the snake came out from under the
sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and
dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man
broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.
The wife still had the problem of the snake in the
house, so she called on a neighbor who volunteered to
capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up
newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he
decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on
the sofa in relief.
But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the
cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She
screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the
sofa.
The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out,
tried to use CPR to revive her.
The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from the
grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's
mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head
with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting
his scalp to a point where it needed stitches.
The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she
saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife
bending over him, so she assumed that the snake had
bitten him. She went to the kitchen and got a small
bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's
throat.
By now, the police had arrived. (BREATH HERE...)
They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey,
and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were
about to arrest them all, when the women tried to
explain how it all happened over a little green snake.
The police called an ambulance, which took away the
neighbor and his sobbing wife.
Now, the little snake again crawled out from under
the sofa and one of the policemen drew his gun and fired
at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end
table. The table fell over, the lamp shattered and, as
the bulb exploded, it started a fire in the drapes.
The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and
fell through the window into the yard on top of the
family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the
street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and
smashed into the parked police car.
Meanwhile, neighbors saw the burning drapes and
called the fire department. The firemen had started
raising the fire ladder when they were halfway down the
street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires,
put out the power, and disconnected the telephones in a
ten-square city block area (but they did get the house
fire out).
Time passed. Both men were discharged from the
hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the
police acquired a new car and all was right with their
world.
A while later they were watching TV and the
weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The
wife asked her husband if he thought they should bring
in their plants for the night.
And that's when he shot her.*
I do believe he is smiling...