~~~  A Black & Blue Christmas!  ~~~


    Christmas of 1997, a couple of my Dad's friends decided to cut
 down their own tree.  Upon returning home, the husband was covered
 in pine pitch, so he started a shower while his wife began to
 decorate the tree.  If only it remained that simple...

    Mid-shower, the wife let forth with a huge scream bringing the
 husband bounding down the stairs wearing nothing but suds.  She was
 pointing under the sofa, shrieking "A snake!  A huge black snake
 crawled out of the tree and slitered under the sofa!"

    The husband quickly began his manly-man duty, and got on hands
 and knees and crawled under the coffee table to get a better look
 under the sofa.  Meanwhile, the wife sprinted outside to get some
 help, and released their Labrador Retriever from his pen.  The dog
 ran inside the open back door and into the living room.  Upon spying
 the husband in his awkward position, the dog did what any dog with
 an ice-cold nose would do when meeting someone.  Feeling this
 glacial greeting, the husband (already on-edge determining the
 whereabouts of a snake) convulsed and bashed his head into the
 bottom of the coffee table, knocking himself completely unconscious.

    At this point, the wife returns to the living room to find her
 husband unresponsive, sprawled on the floor.  Thinking that he
 somehow has received some sort of bite, she immediately calls the
 paramedics who arrive in record time. As the two EMTs are getting
 him dressed and strapping him into the gurney he begins to come to.
 He tells them what really happened, and they are still laughing as,
 on their way out, the snake decides to make a return appearance and
 slithers out from under the sofa.  One of the paramedics is so
 frightened that he jumps back, letting go of the gurney.  The
 husband spills out onto the floor, breaking his wrist.

    The snake, somehow, gets away.