I almost got arrested today.

Yes, it's true.  I almost got arrested today.  It went down like this..

     My wife and I contracted to clean all the piled grass, leaves and sticks from the
backyard of this lady's house in a residential neighborhood within the city limits and
backing up to a school parking lot.
   
     This was a monstrous pile of trash and we were on the third day of the job.
When there was only about an hour's worth of work left, I was squatting down
scooping leaves into one of the paper lawn bags.
   
     Out of nowhere this three and a half foot snake started wiggling toward me.  My wife
Jan, saw it first and yelled "Copperhead, move back!"  I jumped up and starting quickly backing up while watching the snake, and then I remembered we had our Mossberg pistol grip
shotgun behind the seat of the truck.  Fortunately the truck was right behind me.  I reached
in for the shotgun and aimed it toward the copperhead.  I had never shot this weapon before
and since it was a pistol grip, I had wanted to go to the range first to get a sense of the kick and
exactly how to hold the gun and use the sights to hit what I was aiming at.
   
     Needless to say, my weapons training began immediately.  It took 3 shots to
determine how to hold and shoot before I got him with the fourth one.  As we were talking
about what had just happened and were looking at our quarry, we realized that the noise of
the kids talking and playing behind the fence had grown stone cold silent.
   
     "Oh crap!" I said. (Well, I really said something else, but this is a family post!)  I realized
that I had just done a very stupid thing using the gun.  My fears were confirmed when I looked
out the gate toward the front of the house and saw two police officers walking toward us.
   
     Unless you have been living in a cave for a few years, I'm sure that you are aware of how crazy
and stupid our society and government has gotten in the past few years.  We have a school lock
down if someone fart's too loud or robs a bank around here.  And I'm pretty sure it works
much the same way in any metropolitan area in the U.S. now.  Unexplained gun shots are
investigated quickly and taken seriously.

     "I just shot a copperhead!" I yelled to the officers as they continued their approach.

     "Oh" said the male officer.  And they both kept walking toward me.

     (I've got to stop for tonight as this day has done me in. Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow)