Buying a Python While Drunk Never a Good Idea

A UK man's party purchase almost killed his sleeping buddy. While Dwayne Matthews was drinking with friends, a van arrived whose driver was selling a stolen 10-foot-long python, his lawyer tells the Coventry Telegraph. "In his wisdom, and no doubt egged on by his inebriated friends," Matthews took him up on the offer. The next morning, he walked into the room where his friend was sleeping; the African rock snake was "rearing up at (the friend) in an S-shape, its jaws open like a cobra," the lawyer says.

To his credit, Matthews tossed a blanket over the snake and got it back into its glass tank. Then he tried to sell it to a local pet shop, which had gotten wind of a recent snake theft and called police. Matthews got sentenced to eight weeks in prison after admitting receiving stolen goods. "He didn’t decide to get rid of it by dumping it in a bin," says his lawyer. "He was doing the best he could to remedy the situation." (More animal stories.)