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 centre 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 tore-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".