HOW about this for a tale to send a shiver down your spine?

The Daily Mirror reports that mum-of-two Andrea Mort, from St Helen's, Merseyside, got the fright of her life after mistaking a four-foot ball python curled up in her kitchen sink for a rubber toy.  

She initially thought it was a prank after finding it while making an early morning cup of tea.  Her son, Gareth Mort (23), managed to scoop up the creature and called out the RSPCA to collect it.

He commented: “We woke up in the morning and my mum noticed it first. She thought that I had put a toy one there at first as a joke, and it actually looked like one at first and then when we started prodding it, its tongue was coming out and it started moving its head.”