Snake bit:Marsha Murray was on a United...

Snake bit:

Marsha Murray was on a United Airlines plane about to take off for Burbank when she saw a boy beckon to a flight attendant.

“The boy said, ‘May I please have some water for my snake? He just ate and he needs water,”’ Murray related. “He was dead serious and very innocent. He even held up a ceramic dish for the water.”

It turned out that the lad, who was traveling with his brother, had recently purchased the critter, a baby python, and had packed it in his duffel bag.

Once it became evident that the snake reference was no joke, the attendants became somewhat agitated. The boy tried to calm them down by explaining, “I told the man in security and he didn’t say anything.” But the flight personnel weren’t comforted.

The takeoff was delayed in Oakland while a senior attendant was summoned. He told the boy that the snake would have to stay behind and added that there would have been “big trouble” if the plane had taken off with the creature riding in coach class.

“The boy sobbed all the way to Burbank,” Murray said. “When the plane landed and the passengers were filing off, the stewardess told him, ‘I’m so sorry I had to report your snake.’ But he never looked at her.”

AT LEAST HE DIDN’T HAVE ANY PETS: As we were waiting for Mrs. Only in L.A. to land at Duke Wayne Airport the other night, we heard this announcement over the P.A. system:

“Will the parents of the lost child who is playing with the emergency phone in the baggage area please find him? Thank you.”

AN ENDORSEMENT OF SORTS: John Nachreiner saw a panhandler’s sign outside the Erewhon Natural Foods Market on Beverly Boulevard. The sign said: “I need money for raw vegetables, organically grown foods and medicine.”

SANTA MONICA ON THE SEINE: The Paris magazine, Le Nouvel Observateur, imported some beachfront real estate north of Wilshire Boulevard for a photo montage in a recent travel piece. The least the French could do in return is to lend L.A. the Eiffel Tower while City Hall is hors de combat.

FAMILY $$$: Laurel Hall of Whittier saw a sign at a local pizza restaurant that said: “When your business is run on family values, your customers are like family.”

Hall adds: “Very comforting, eh? However, a sign on an adjoining wall declared, ‘No free refills.’ ”

miscelLAny The L.A. Police Historical Society is staging its annual Jack Webb Awards tonight in memory of L.A.’s greatest celluloid cop. TV lawmen expected at the Century Plaza Hotel fund-raiser include Erik Estrada (“CHiPs”), Earl Holliman (“Police Woman”), Joe Santos (“Rockford Files”), Kent McCord (“Adam 12”), Robert Stack (“Untouchables”) and Max Gail (who played Wojo in “Barney Miller”). We hope Wojo isn’t making the coffee.