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12
Once upon a time there were two men wandering around in Death Valley. Why you
may ask were they in Death Valley. The reason was that Indiana depressed them,
but I digress. During their wanderings, they came across a lever in the sand
with a sign attached to it. The sign read 'PULL LEVER TO END THE WORLD'. This
frightened the two men to a point which they thought that they should do
something to keep any person from pulling the lever on purpose or by accident.
The first thing they tried to do was destroy the lever, but to their dismay
the lever was indestructible. They next tried to bury the lever but found
that any sand piled on top of the lever was magically swept away within
seconds. After a few days worth of thinking, one of the men, call him Joe
for want of a better name, came up with what he thought was a brilliant
plan. After discussing his idea with Bill (the other man in this story),
they ran all the way into the nearest town. This in itself was no small
feat because the nearest town was 47 miles away. In this town Joe and
Bill bought themselves a 30 foot Python and named him Nate. Joe and Bill
then took Nate out to where the lever was and spent the next two weeks
training Nate to hiss at anybody who got within ten feet of the lever. Nate
got very good at protecting the lever and Joe and Bill were satisfied that
the lever would never be pulled. After Joe and Bill returned to the town, they
soon began bragging about what they has accomplished. This brought their work
to the attention of the Humane Society. A few days after their return, a
representative of the Humane Society informed them that they could not leave
Nate unprotected in the desert without risking legal action against themselves.
Bill and Joe then went to the local pet store and bought Nate a Python house
and dragged it the 47 miles out to where the lever stood and built it for Nate.
The house went up easily, but Joe and Bill had to re-train Nate to stay in his
house and whenever someone got too close to the lever, to leave his house and
to hiss the person away. Joe and Bill were again rather proud of what they
did and made their way back to town. Just as they entered the city limits,
the representative of the Humane Society met them there. "I'm sorry," said
the rep, "but the law states that you need a source of water for your snake
out in the desert". The rep suggested that they install a swimming pool for
Nate and they agreed. Joe and Bill then went to the town's swimming pool
center and bought the supplies for a nice Olympic sized pool for Nate. They
dragged the supplies the 47 miles out to Nate and installed the pool. Now
Bill and Joe had to re-re-train Nate. They had to teach him how to swim, to
leave the pool when someone got too close to the lever, and not to hiss at the
man who came once a week to fill his pool. This took another month because
Nate wasn't a very good swimmer. Joe and Bill were exhausted after this and
made their way to town taking their time. When they finally did get back, the
mayor of the town met them at the city limits with some bad news. "I just
found out" explained the mayor, "the state plans on building a highway that
goes right between Nate's house and the lever. So now Joe and Bill had to
re-re-re-train Nate. Now whenever someone got too close to the lever, Nate
had to leave his house, look both ways across the street and then hiss at the
person until they went away. This took another month, but the highway was
finally built and everything went rather well, expect for the occasional
hissing at by Nate at some highway worker who strayed too close to the lever.
Things went very well for the next ten years. One day, the man who filled
Nate's pool was on his way to do just that. There was an accident in the
road just before Nate's house. The driver had to swerve in order to avoid
the accident and ran right over Nate's house killing Nate. When asked later
why the driver chose to run over Nate's house rather than hitting the lever,
the driver replied "It was better Nate than Lever".
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