Electrified Rattlesnake Mayhem

"As it is written in the Book of Jashar.        The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day. There has never been a day like it before or since..." 

Star Date: September 10th, 1966.  The Bible records a day the sun stood still... and this Saturday had the makings of such a day.

Captain's Log: This very, very, very long day includes:
            AM  8:00-10:00   Welcome to Hotel Crazy   (Last blog post)
                                                   Honking Jimmy and the incredibly chapped lips
                    10:00-12:00  Electrified Rattlesnake Mayhem 
                                                   Discovering the rattlesnake while electrifying the "fire escape"
            PM  12:00-1:00    Day of the Iguana
                                                   Catch one and lose another - the poor Trips!
                    1:00 - 2:00    The Dreadful Discovery: What Jimmy left behind
                                                    Jimmy literally thought we meant bathroom.
                     2:00-2:30     Fire Pole Terrorism: The Not-So-Great Escape
                                                     Chased by Jerry "TT" (See last blog post) Not Good!                           
                     3:00- 4:00    Chewy's Free Fall.
                                                   The switch gets turned on, mom rushes Chewy to the Hospital
                     4:00-5:00     The Great Escape.
                                                   "The Rat Killer" verses the Venice Police Department...
                                                      ...and the stupid hitchhikers!

                    Time out for french fries. We had to eat sometime (and gather resources). 

                     6:30-7:30     The Prank on Edna's Porch
                                                    The whole stinking shooten-match
                     8:30-9:30      Burning Down the Lennon Sister's House
                                                    What happens when a homemade Chinese lantern goes very wrong!
 
10:00 AM. The peaceful jungle on the third floor was suddenly alive when dad beat the ceiling and walls with a  broom handle to wake up the Wolf Pack. The hot Oatmeal he had made was now nothing more than a lump of cold gruel.

Jimmy was still hanging out in the fort probably slurping the boogers and Vaseline that lathered together on his upper lip. Tommy had run home in fear and Gherhing the Great came by when he heard Gustav's "Rat Killer."   The excitement was just beginning. Gustav didn't dare "hot-rod" down Harding, because of what Mr. Lennon did to Leland's car with a well placed golf-ball using his 5 iron, but that didn't keep Gustav from waking up Venice with the roar of the billion horsepower he had under the hood of his rather nondescript outside packaging of that old 56 Ford (deception at its finest).

I told Gherhing the Great (my 5th grade buddy from Saint Marks) that it wasn't safe inside - at least not for me, because of Milk Wars (blog post 7 13 2013). So I kept Gherhing the Great at bay until the Wolf Pack finished their food fight and emerged from the back door to begin their diabolical plan of electrifying the "fire escape" pole they installed years earlier that dangled precariously from a tippy-top corbel at the peak of the roof. 

                       Here is a picture from years earlier!

and years before that...

                                                       ...and years before that!







It appears that we liked to climb and fight and hang on to things that would cause irreparable damage if we fell - hence all the broken bones and the need for a hospital bed in the dining room (last blog post). Putting ourselves at risk seemed to be in our DNA.




Making the flying leap out the back window of our three story house had ceased to thrill them and they felt compelled to come up with some brilliant plan in order to satisfy their sweet tooth for peril. With Gustav there you can bet it would included something to do with electricity... since they had already found out a way to electrify me, John Masson and one of the nuns from Saint Marks Catholic grammar school.

With king Gustav's help they employed the bare electrical wires that hung out of the kitchen wall (blog post 7 11, 2013 "Shocking") with bunch of jumper cables he had wired through a crude switch.

The pole, however, missed the ground by about six feet, which still made the final leap to the ground pretty hairy for someone my size. Below the pole was an old Azalea bush that helped cushion the landing... while Puke Breath was standing on Chewbacca's shoulder attaching the jumper cables... that is when we made the most terrifying discovery...or should I say, that is when the missing rattle snake discovered us. Well, not really us  - but Chewbacca. Turns out that this just happened to be the hiding spot of choice for the fugitive rattlesnake.  Since Chewbacca's feet were glued to the ground with Puke Breath standing on his shoulders, the snake decided to seek refuge up Chewbacca's pant leg.

Chewbacca stiffened and screamed as the snaked slithered northward towards his boy parts. He vaulted Puke Breath off his shoulders who landed 8 feet away on top of my new fort crashing the roof in on top of Jimmy who was still inside. Jimmy Honked letting the boys know he was trapped underneath.

Honk!

No one had any idea what was going on with Chewbacca as he froze like a concrete pillar and pointed to his pants. The Wolf Pack grew frustrated as they decided to tackle him and take him down. Chewbacca turned slowly and the Band of Brothers could see the snake slithering up towards his crotch.

Chewbacca was dead. There was just no way to rescue the doomed 18 year old.  The flustered tribe couldn't come up with any way to coax a deadly and agitated rattlesnake out of someone britches?  In a snide comment Dooh-Dooh Pants sarcastically said, "Why don't we electrocute him."

"That's it" Gustav said.
"What's it?" Dooh-Dooh Pants said.
"What you said!" Gustav said.
"What did I say?" Dooh-Dooh Pants asked.

"We'll electrocute them!" Gustave said, snapping fingers and beginning to bark out orders.

"Them?" Chewbacca asked fearfully discering the plural in the word "them." At this moment he felt he would rather take his chances with the deadly viper that had begun taking up residence in his crotch. "No" he begged, trying not to move his lips or any part of his body, but it was too late.

Dooh-Dooh Pants was already in place with jumper cables ready to forcefully make contact to Chewbacca's exposed forearms at Gustav's command. "Now!" shouted Gustav as Dooh Dooh Pants touched the metal ends to Chewbacca like paddles of a electronic defibrillator.

Chewbacca screamed as all that long blonde hair shot straight up, he stiffened and keeled over as if dead.

The boys rushed in and descended on him like a pack of wolves on a downed bear.  They unzipped his pants and pulled them down to his ankles in a split second. As Chewbacca laid unconsciousness (like I usually did after one of his infamous "Templates" - blog post 6 24, 2014 "Template of Doom") Dooh-Dooh Pants, our official snake wrangler, had the stunned rattler around the neck so it couldn't strike with its deadly teeth and carefully began to transport it back upstairs to the cages up on the third floor.

Meanwhile, Chewbacca came to (that was good news), but staggered to his feet in nothing but his tightly-whities...tripping over the pants that had been pulled down around his ankles. At least mom didn't have to make a trip to the emergency room.

Mind you, I did take great literary license in this story, as I conflate the big picture of several stories and put them together. I think, however, you're beginning to get an idea of what life was like at my house i.e. "Hotel Crazy"  (I also changed the names to protect the innocent - or should I say guilty).