I’ve always kind of thought of Florida as being some place kind of special. I lived there, in Pensacola, for several years many, many years ago. People always referred to that coast of Florida that touches the Gulf of Mexico as the Redneck Riviera. Over the years since, whenever I’ve visited Florida’s Gulf Coast, things haven’t changed much. You just have to be wary of the four H’s…and no, not the “positive youth development and mentoring organization” – 4-H. I was a member of that for more years than I can recall. My biggest takeaway was becoming a certified (not kidding here) 4-H meat judge. For years thereafter, I would walk into a supermarket and begin judging cuts of beef…too much marbling, not enough marbling, color is good, color is bad…I’m ruined for life. The woman who taught the course was with the OSU Extension Office in Cosmic City. She had it in for me. Course I wasn’t helping myself. I would panic whenever she called my name as we were doing the meat-flash slides where you had two seconds to identify a cut of beef projected on the wall. I don’t think I ever made it to a 4-H meat judging contest, I wasn’t fast enough on the meat identification portion. Still, she certified me…couldn’t fail something in 4-H, the extension officer would get a reputation as a failer. But, I digress… Nope, I’m talking about the Florida 4 H’s here, things to avoid while in the Sunshine State: 1) Hurricanes (generally, you have some warning and can get the hell out of the way unless of course you make your living as a TV weather guesser and want to do your weather report while holding onto a lamppost in 110 mph winds); 2) Humidity (almost impossible to avoid unless you choose to live your life indoors and only venture out at night, like a friggin’ vampire – which brings us to number 3); 3) Highway Serial Killers (this seems to be a very Florida sort of thing and makes hitchhiking in Florida impossible, not to mention lethal); and, 4) Hillbillies (they’re everywhere, you just don’t see them…inbred, old-school Floridians who switch from producing ‘shine to meth depending on their markets and the availability of anhydrous ammonia). Now, I suppose we can add yet another H to the Florida quadumvirate, which I suppose will turn it into a quintumvirate. The fifth H will be hawks, or more specifically, kestrels, which are technically falcons, but falcon doesn’t start with H and it’s my blog so if I say a kestrel is a hawk, then a kestrel is a hawk. Nuff said. For those of you who are ornithologically challenged, the kestrel is a small (about the size of a large robin – no jokes about this large Robin, if you please) bird of prey found in areas of Florida. There was an article on the Huffington Post web site about some idiot, we’ll call him Hapless Homeowner (ah ha, another H to add to a…ummm…sextumvirate – sounds dirty, huh). Hapless Homeowner finds what he thinks is a “tame” kestrel in his yard. He saw the bird sitting in his yard. It didn’t move when he approached it and picked it up to take inside his house. He told Animal League people that he thought the bird actually liked him because it was acting strangely calm. Okay, cue the sappy orchestral music, we have a ‘70’s wildlife film in the making here. Girl travels to Africa to live among a pride of lions and record their every bowel movement for 10 years of her life…only to be eaten by the pride and made a part of their bowel movement. See where this is heading? So Hapless Homeowner names his new pet, Homer (ugh, there’s the seventh H in our Florida septumvirate), and sets about making himself famous. He posts Homer’s pic on Facebook, which comes to the attention of the local animal rescue organization, which immediately informs Hapless Homeowner that it is illegal (not to mention really stupid) to keep a live kestrel as a pet. Hapless Homeowner agrees to hand the bird over to animal rescue people in exchange for them not ratting him out to local law enforcement. Bet he was trying to stay off the law’s radar…probably one of the aforementioned ‘shine/meth entrepreneurs (who’d been sampling a bit too much of his product). Guess he’d never heard Tony Montana’s motto, “Don’t get high on your own supply!” The animal rescue people show up at Hapless Homeowner’s home to collect the wild predatory bird of prey (stick with me here). Here comes Hapless (we’ll call him Hap from now on, we all seem to be on familiar terms by now) carrying the bird and bleeding profusely from the lower lip. In fact there’s a largish chunk of his lower lip that’s missing. It seems ol’ Hap saw the animal rescue people pull up to his hapless household and decided to give the bird of prey a goodbye kiss. Seriously. What a dumbass. Probably a good thing he didn’t try to turn a Florida gator into a pet (the amphibious reptile, not a college student – although that would fit if you were a Florida Highway Serial Killer). According to the animal rescue people, the bird probably flew into the side of Hap’s house and was stunned. That explains its calm mental state until dumbass tried to kiss it. Okay kids, pray tell, what have we learned today? 1) Never try to kiss a bird of prey or any other WILD animal goodbye. They’re very resentful when you kick them out the door. 2) Florida is a strange and savage place with more ‘shine/meth entrepreneurs per capita than anywhere in Oklahoma. 3) Next would have been octumvirate – I know you were wondering. 4) When dealing with wild animals that find their way into your hapless life, there’s a phrase in Latin that may help, “surculus rutrum clausa” which roughly translated is “shoot, shovel, shut-up”. 5) Stay the hell out of Florida! Comments are closed.
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