Stealing Stories From My Life

I am sure by now, all of you have heard of or seen, the summer blockbuster Snakes on a Plane. I for one refuse to see this bit of Hollywood trash because truth be told, the story was ripped from the pages of my life. It all started about two years ago when a man by the name of John Heffernan came into the pub. Heffernan (aka: the asshole) was on vacation and needed to escape what he described as his "nagging wife" and "brat children". In any case, I was telling Finbar and Tim one of their favorite stories, it was 1961, and I was out on a 10-day fishing run. Apparently, although I did not know it yet, one of my bait containers had not been loaded with the proper bait; instead of live fish I had live snakes. Now I am not afraid of much, but what I am afraid of is fucking snakes, these bastards crawl around the ground without and feet or legs, they don’t even have those tiny ones like caterpillars! Anyway, the sea was rough and on the voyage the bait container became dislodged and opened onto the deck of the ship. This was a normal occurrence as the ship which had once been a German warship (we called her the Morning Star) was a piece of shit that was constantly providing myself and my crew a great deal of trouble. But when snakes came pouring out of the open container all hell broke loose.

As I told the heroic tale that ensued, which eventually led to a fire, a near capsizing, engine failure, an accidental shooting, and a tragic explosion that split the Morning Star in two and dragged my brave first mate Shamus to the bottom of the sea, the asshole (Heffernan), was mesmerized. He said that he was a writer by trade and wished to develop a screenplay based on the story. While I knew the story was nothing less than a blockbuster hit, I told him that I could not disgrace the memory of Shamus and that "I could never re-live the day those mother fucking snakes got on my mother fucking boat" (I have heard rumors he used a similar line in the film). The rest is history; Heffernan went on to write Snakes on a Plane, instead of Snakes on a Boat and instead of a brave (but scared) Irish captain the hero is a badass by the name of Samuel L. Jackson.

While some would say I should sue this asshole, I know I could not win as the story he has produced is sure to be sufficiently different than the actual Snakes on a Boat incident, but one thing is for sure: no movie could ever come close to emulating the horrors of that fateful day.