[skippy]

Here’s another one from that same workshop. I was the foreman in charge of about 40 guys and one of those 40 was an apprentice who was 4ft nothing tall and had a high pitched voice. He, like all apprentices in probably all lands, was the victim of all the practical jokes at that time.

One day I had to go out to have a look at a job at an aboriginal reserve about 160km (100 miles) from the base. On the return trip in the company 4x 4, I ran over a 2m (6ft) King Brown snake so I backed up, got out, made sure it was dead with a stick, picked it up with a rag and put it in the back of the 4 x 4. When I arrived back at the workshop I tied its head securely with a rag because King Browns are deadly poisonous.
I then put it in a bag and took it inside to the tool shed where I carefully placed the snake (coiled up again) in the rag drum which was a 44 gallon drum sitting on a pallet. I went out to where the apprentice was working and asked him if he could get me a rag. Next thing you know he was running through the workshop at full speed, terrified look on his face with a high pitched scream coming from his mouth. Poor guy wasn't tall enough to see into the drum and so a handfull of still warm King Brown is what he had grabbed. Before anyone says it, yes it was cruel on my part but, like most apprentices I received more than my share too during my apprenticeship years.

EDIT: Just to expand on that last statement, I once had a tradesman connect up the high tension lead of the spark plug tester to the metal bench it was placed on and used a tooth pick to keep the test button depressed. I (as an apprentice) was then asked to go and get a (metal) tool from the bench and off course when I grabbed it I was thrown back some metres by the high tension electric shock.

Hmmm.... seems like these things don't happen in the US?