I joked around with my friends that I highly dislike alligators, crocodiles, and sharks. That’s because they are scary and tend to eat things, namely, they eat humans.*
Sure, here in the U.S., we have our share of scorpions and snakes and spiders. And bears, if you go camping. [One reader astutely noted that some bears, in fact, do eat people.] And while those things are dangerous … there is a special kind of nightmarish fear for Things That Eat Us.
Just so you know … so you, too, can have nightmares about these things … there is one place on earth that has ALL THREE.
We named this place “Florida.” Florida loosely translates into hot and humid place that has human eating animals roaming wild that the State does nothing about because it’s too damn scary. I know there is an acronym in there somewhere, but the only thing I could come up with is the “d” and “a” for “damn alligators.”
(Florida actually means something like “lots of flowers.”)
To be exact, I am talking about the Florida Everglades, which, thankfully, was far away from where I stayed. Also, just so you know, the Florida Everglades are home to fire ants, scorpions, bears, AND poisonous snakes. A haven of human-devouring or poisonous animals.**
I’m fairly certain that Ponce de León died because some Calusas thought he was a strange species of alligator.
But! Wait! Alligators and crocodiles hibernate. In. The. Winter. Florida is safe from human-eating-things for a little while. (The alligators were hibernating during my trip to Florida.) This explains a lot, like snow birds and retirees.
* One of my friends ate a meal of alligators. Take that, Everglades!
** The Florida Everglades also has
poison ivy and poison oak.
