My moment as Florida Man
TL/DR: How I ended up in the back of a squad car, holding an alligator
- Florida man hits woman in the face with fried chicken
- Florida man escapes Police on Kayak
- Florida man denies ownership of syringes found in his rectum
These are just a few titles of news articles from my glorious state. Florida is a wild provincial backwater with pockets of civilization scattered throughout. For those who call the state home, the wild nature of Florida is part of its appeal.
That was part of the reason why I became a cop. I had to work to put myself through college and found myself flitting from retail to restaurant, back to retail, at all levels of sales and customer service. I soon bored of being chained to a single building, doing a repetitive task, for inadequate pay, watching the wild world flit by. I found I still had the bug for adventure, despite my stint in the Marine Corps. Law Enforcement seemed a logical and fitting vocation.
I went to the academy, got a job, and proved myself through the Field Training and early part of my career. So it was with a sense of Floridian adventure that I responded to a call of a juvenile alligator down by the highway. Since it was late at night, Animal Control wasn’t available.
I pulled up to the Antique Store carved out of the forest. I found fellow citizens following the creature alongside the building. It was three feet long, thirty pounds, and walked with the ungainliness of an amphibian. There was a quick debate about what to do. For miles in any direction was forest and suburbs. The nearest lakes were equally distant. I could let the creature roam and get struck on the road, but that might ruin the driver’s night, and the night of the citizens who had called. Besides, I figured, I had the opportunity to wrestle a dinosaur and win.
The County I worked in specifically trained their academy students how to trap alligators, but I had gone to an academy in a more metropolitan area. It had been a humorous joke during my training, a joke I was now living. I could feel my supervisor cringing in anticipation as I approached and donned my black, tear-resistant gloves.
The creature hissed that throaty alligator warning as I came alongside him. Before I could think, I dropped my arm and body-weight just above the alligator’s shoulders. I pinned the animal to the ground, and held it by its neck. The creature spun in my grasp, instinctively trying to roll out of my grip, but I was committed, and six times his weight. I was still surprised by the strength of such a small creature, but I did not let that panic me. During a roll, he came face side up, and I clamped down his jaw with my free hand. Alligators have a monstrous bite, but it is on the snap shut that they are most powerful. The only reason why alligator entertainment shows are possible in the sticks of Florida, is because their mouths can be held closed with the firm grip of a hand. How Florida man first learned this fact is easily imagined.
The small crowd cheered, and I climbed into the back of my supervisor’s patrol car. As we wound down the streets to the lake I thought,
“This is the most Florida I’ll ever be.” And I laughed and beamed with pride at the same time.
Few men can say they were Marines. Few men can say they were Cops. Fewer still can say they wrestled a dinosaur and won. A small dinosaur granted, but a terrible lizard all the same. My arms burned from clamping the mouth shut, and I could feel the strength and tension of the wild animal as we drove, but we made it to the lake with the same amount of holes in us as when we started the night.
I edged near the lake and released the tiny monster. He climbed into the water and swam away.
For a few moments, I was Florida Man, and my article would have read,
“Florida man found in back of squad car with captured alligator.”
