YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE CRAZY TO LIVE HERE - BUT IT HELPS

The other day my husband and I were leaving Subway, our usual fine dining establishment, and he started to laugh when he looked at me (I am a great source of merriment for Richie).  I was wearing my shorts, my long sleeve top and a heavy hoodie zipped up to my neck.  I also had the hood up over my head. (The air conditioning in any Florida establishment is usually set for 50 degrees.  I bring covers for my legs)

"I wonder if anyone ever looks at you and thinks you're crazy.  It is 92 degrees outside and you look like you're expecting the first snowfall."

His comment took me by surprise.  Surely, he wasn't serious.  And don't call me shirley.  This is the state that acquitted a woman last week for killing her daughter - a woman who said she left the house at 4:00 in the afternoon with her child only to arive at her boyfriend's at 7:00 alone.  A jury of her peers found this plausible.  No child.  She proceeded to party like it was 1999 for thirty-one days before she noticed her kid was gone.  Evidently the rapture had made a random sweep.   

"We live in Florida," I whispered.  "Everyone in Florida is crazy."  Duh!  Is he kidding.  He nodded at the wisdom of that remark and said no more (I should be so lucky.)  Actually, of all the Oxycotin prescribed in the US, 85% of it comes from Florida.

The truth is that everyone IS crazy in Florida.  We have possibly the oldest looking motorcyle gangs here in the world.  You think young motorcyle gangs are mean - they have nothing on these geriatric Sons of Hell who take water pills daily and they ride by afternoon light - no night vision. 

Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do...what you gonna do when they come for you

The other day I saw a four hundred year old man at Subway sporting a full brown wig plopped atop his thick white hair like a beret.  His wife was also very lovely.  She had on a long bleached blonde hair wig, four inch heels, pipe cleaner legs and a rack that was about a 48DD.  She kept falling forward into the Teriyaki Chicken.  It would have been more amusing if it wasn't MY Chicken Teriyaki, but I digress...

Did you want fries with that?

“Florida is messed up,” Drew Curtis wrote in his 2007 book “It’s Not News, It’s Fark.” “Whatever the reason, Florida is without a doubt the No. 1 state for weird news.”

Though there is hardly a way to quantify the “weirdness” of a state, the fact that the oddities of Florida have inspired multiple books, at least one daily blog and the only state-related tag on Fark — a site dedicated to absurd news — seems to support Curtis’ claim.

Our Governor

Take, for example, Scientology.  Scientology Headquarters has all but taken over downtown Clearwater which means the scary Tom Cruise must be around somewhere, along with the equally scary John Travolta and Kirstie Alley.  We saw Steven King at the discount show a few years ago.  He seemed nice.  His restraints were hardly noticable.

It's this big

So, you see, the point I am trying to make here is that my wearing long sleeves and a woolen hoodie zipped up to my neck in 92 degree weather wasn't really all that weird.   I should probably rethink the grilled meat hat though.  What do you think?

this girl's got to be a Florida native