buckykingofmemes:

i’m delegating my hugging duties to dogs. to all dogs. don’t worry, they’re great at it. discuss the terms of your hug with the next dog you meet. he’ll know what you’re talking about. (if you’re allergic to fur, i recommend a snake. they are also excellent huggers.)

and since im talking about snakes anyways, here’s a snake story. i didn’t get to see this one first hand, but us 107th guys spent a bit of time with the Star-Spangled Showgirls after the rescue, and a lovely lady named molly told me about this. 

molly’s still around, and she tells this story much better than me, but you’ll have to make do with my version.

when the star-spangled show was on tour, they went all over the country, hitting every major city they could, and some not-so-major cities in between. in the major cities, they had proper opera houses and concert venues to use. in smaller towns…not so much. school gyms, community centers, and public park bandstands all hosted steve’s spangly ass. they found dressing rooms where they could, but often they had to share, since the show included some fifty-odd female performers, and the only male actors were steve and hitler. (…the guy who played hitler. the real hitler was pretty busy being a huge jerkwad somewhere in germany at that point.) so sometimes steve and fake-adolph wound up with a curtained-off corner of the girl’s dressing room.

which was pretty much the setup in nowheresville, arizona. they were in a community center, and the dressing room was an indoor tennis court. steve and the hitlerganger were chatting and waiting for the girls to give them the ‘we’re decent, you can come out’ all clear, when the screaming started. 

you ever hear fifty terrified showgirls screaming? it’s a miracle that none of the windows shattered. 

anyway, steve and hitler came charging out to see what was happening. half the girls were standing on top of the makeup tables and chairs, mostly ringed around one corner. steve had had the presence of mind to grab his shield, and he pushed his way (gently, because he’s polite to ladies) through the crowd to see what was up.

in the corner was a snake. steve swears it was five feet if it was an inch. molly says it was two feet, max.  

steve, having no idea what to do but doomed to heroism anyway, did what steve always does when he’s stymied: he threw his shield at it. 

well, not at it. technically, his shield landed on top of it, so that it was trapped in the concave part. steve jumped after and held the shield down so it couldn’t get out. crisis averted!

crisis not averted. this was steve’s original kite shield, not the dome shield howard made him. which meant that the snake very easily slid out the open side, and promptly bit steve in the hand.

steve screamed. a window shattered from the pitch. (or at least, a window shattered when molly tells the story. steve says she’s lying, but he also gets really, really red, so…) 

as steve contemplated his imminent death by snake venom, ruby, who was from arizona, stepped up and grabbed the snake. it let go of steve, and she stood there, holding it, until steve opened his eyes. 

molly said she’s never saw a better ‘really very unimpressed’ face than ruby’s right then. 

ruby held up the snake and said, ‘steven. this is a milk snake. they’re harmless. you just scared the daylights out of this poor thing.’ and then she made steve take the snake and carry it outside. 

molly says steve held that snake the way most girls would hold a dead rat, but by the time they found a suitable spot to release it, he’d made friends and decided to name it gary. 

steve watched gary slide off into the underbrush. and then he turned around and realized he was surrounded by partially-dressed showgirls, many of whom were still in their underwear, and went bright, flaming red.