You tell which is which after the tale is told. It’s a close race and it could go either way. Kids do not try this one at home, or anywhere else for that matter.

He lived in a ranch house far from town. He was known in the area for throwing gargantuan events of drunken proportions. With intentions of debauchery in mind, the host had provided essential elements, a keg of beer and an item to talk about during the occasion. Some time before the fraternization, he captured a rattlesnake and placed it in a 55-gallon barrel. There’s nothing like a slithering reptile to provide an excellent conversation piece for any affair needing exaggeration.

Two brothers stayed outside and were talking beside the barrel that had the snake inside. "I bet you I can reach my hand inside that barrel and grab that snake before it can bite me," one brother bragged.

"I bet you, you can’t," the other brother said.

Possessing the kind of stupidity that only a totally inebriated person can have, the first brother reached into the barrel containing the rattler. Yes, the rattler bit him. He pulled away his hand with dulled pain.

"Heck, I can do that," the second brother said. He reached his hand into the barrel of the poisonous viper that had only moments before bitten his brother. Yes, the rattler bit him too. Deciding that perhaps it wasn’t such a good idea to annoy the snake, the siblings casually went into the house to join the rest of the guests. They weren’t giving the potentially fatal instance a second thought. The brothers were just bitten by a rattlesnake; and they were thirty miles from the nearest hospital. Okay?

Someone brought up the rattlesnake in a conversation, and one of the brothers mentioned incidentally that they had been bitten. After hearing that information the party’s host quickly loaded the two into a car and sped to the hospital facilities. There the two were treated for their wounds. The first brother got the most effect from the poison and had to have repeated therapy over a period of time. The second brother’s bite was less harmful because not as much poison was released.