Living in Florida best way to believe state’s ‘unbelievable’ stories
Frank Cerabino
I take issue with BuzzFeed’s recent story titled “32 Unbelievable Things that Happened in Florida in 2016.”
First of all, if you’ve lived in Florida long enough, you lose capability of thinking that any story is unbelievable.” There are merely just levels of weirdness.
So yes, Joshua James, 23, of Jupiter, did get arrested for tossing a live alligator into a drive-thru window of a local Wendy’s — which came in at No. 5 on the BuzzFeed list. But was it “unbelievable”?
No, it was just Florida, right down to James’ post-prank, pre-adjudication assessment:
“This is probably the last time I’m going to do this,” he said.
But my main problem with BuzzFeed’s honor roll of Florida stories from this year is that the casual reader might conclude that this is an authoritative and exhaustive list of bizarre Florida stories.
It’s not. Coming up with 32 stories implies a complete list, because usually these kind of list stories are divisible by 10 or 5.
But while BuzzFeed did get some beauties on its list, such as the Florida man who was nabbed for using his wanted poster as his Facebook photo, it missed some real gems.
Here’s an incomplete roundup of 10 more bizarre Florida stories from this year that didn’t make the BuzzFeed list:
1. Trying the jail- fifirst approach to public service
When the new city of Westlake was carved out of unoccupied agricultural land in Palm Beach County, one the fifive people designated as its fifirst city council was Anthony Fritz, 27, who turned out to be living in the Palm Beach County Jail at the time due to a battery charge involving his girlfriend.
2. Hint: Maybe they’re hiring at The Sausage Factory
A South Florida man sued the “breastaurant” chain Twin Peaks for sexual discrimination because he wasn’t being considered for a server job. Raphael Ortiz of Hialeah said he wasn’t hired as a waiter because the chain only wants servers who display “girl-nextdoor charisma.” Ortiz was also turned down at Hooters, the source of an earlier lawsuit.
3. Don’t let them hear about this at the Blowing Rocks Preserve on Jupiter Island
A group of citizens in Central Florida have petitioned