Florida, Again

Florida is in the news again. This is never good.

Florida has sharks that occasionally eat people. This is not a huge problem. If you live in or visit Florida, you know ahead of time where the sharks are going to be. They live in the ocean. If you don’t like being eaten by sharks, just stay out of the ocean.

Florida also has alligators. Alligators live in fresh water like ponds, lakes, and canals. Don’t like being eaten by an alligator? Then don’t swim in a canal. Don’t get close to a pond or lake. Consider that every puddle of water in Florida could be hiding a predator that views you as a tasty snack. Just stay away from water unless it comes to you in a beverage glass.

Florida also has Burmese pythons. These are enormous snakes that can kill animals like deer. They can kill pets, too. A very large one might be able to kill a human. And then, after the killing, comes the eating. Pythons want to eat you, too.

Today I read this headline: “Pet Owners Watch Out! Cat-Eating Giant Lizards Prowling Palm Beach Florida.” Cat-eating giant lizards? Good grief, Florida. Why so many critters that want to eat people and pets?

I was at a friend’s house and tuning the TV, looking for a channel that had something interesting, and came across this movie on the SyFy channel; the name of the movie – I’m not making this up – was Big Ass Spider. The movie was about – well, a big ass spider that was rampaging across Los Angeles, destroying things and, of course, eating people.

I don’t know how the movie ended – it seemed too silly to watch, but I like to think I can guess how it ended. The humans trapped the big ass spider and shipped it to Florida, where it fit right in with the big ass snakes and the big ass lizards, and it lived happily ever after.