Stranger than Fiction

Florida wouldn't be the same without its gator stories

It's the classic Florida news story.

No, not the one last week about one 74-year-old man crashing his car into the Tampa International Airport and hitting another 74-year-old man in the process -- they both survived just fine, by the way.

I mean the one from Tuesday out of Inverness, where a lady heard her two dachshunds barking wildly in the yard and went out to investigate. She found a 4-foot-long alligator under her pickup and called 911.

A higher-than-average percentage of 911 calls in Florida involve alligators, I'd imagine. And, oh joy, there was another article this month about the proliferation of crocodiles, too.

In all fairness, they were here first. Just because humans moved down and built their horse tracks and interstates and condos and outlet malls and amusement parks doesn't mean the alligators have to stop living their reptilian lives. All we did was provide alternative food sources for them in the form of small, yippy dogs.

That's what people love about this state, though. A week without gator catchers and herbicide, and Florida would look like some of those post-apocalyptic movies where the characters are hacking their way through the jungle and find a strip mall. When I produce my version of that movie, the palmetto bugs will have grown to 6 feet and learned to walk on their hind legs and speak English, making them the ruling class. They will terrorize humans by grabbing them with their pincers and flying off to feed.

Actually, that will probably happen with or without an apocalypse.

Everything grows down here with little help from humans. The Other Half brought home a hanging basket of flowers last month. When we lived in Cape Girardeau, those baskets lasted roughly a day before we killed them. Here, we've virtually ignored the basket, and the flowers are starting to spill over the sides. Same thing with our Schefflera and rubber tree plants, which were headed for the trash bin if they hadn't been put on our front porch and ignored down here.

Everywhere you look are tropical flowers and leafy plants, soaking up the sun and rain and producing, producing, producing until someone cuts them back.

But there's a cruel twist: The same thing plant lovers adore about this state is what we hate about living here. The heat and humidity that makes it so great for Schefflera really sucks for humans.

Monday, I decided to walk the three blocks from my office to the dentist, a cute and friendly guy my insurance company put me onto. When I arrived, I was dripping sweat and ineffectively dabbing at it with an already-soaked paper towel. Dr. Hottie went to shake my hand, noticed the sweat towel and PULLED HIS HAND BACK.

I could have just died. Later, I noticed my carefully flat-ironed bangs were flipped out on each side, "Charlie's Angels" style.

So, as much as I love the gators and flowers and palm trees and all the stuff that makes Florida different, I won't be stepping outdoors again until November.

Maybe December.

Heidi Hall is a former managing editor of the Southeast Missourian who now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.