The Common Denominator

In 1989 I visited my best friend from high school who lives in Florida with his family. We traveled all over the state, including Key West and the Everglades.

In the Florida Everglades on our way to Tampa from Miami, there is a section called Alligator Alley. You can see alligators sunbathing on the side of the road. As they bask in the sun, if you take precautions, you can stop the car and take pictures of them. Which I did; I knew better than to get close to the banks of the Everglade waters.

This past Monday, I read a news report from Florida, where an 85-year-old woman who was walking her small dog near a pond by her house was killed when a 10-foot alligator dragged her into the water, after the alligator first attempted to take her dog.

The common denominator in most of these alligator attacks in Florida is that the victim was too close to the water, before being attacked. I feel sorry for the victim, but these incidents occur so often that I sometimes wonder if these Floridians don’t read the news about alligator attacks?

The top image has been photoshopped from the comic book Florida Man.