By: Charles Felix
Where Is Tick Tock the Crocodile When You Need Him?
First, let me say Happy Easter and Good Pesach to all those among us who observe and celebrate. And if I’ve left out any other holiday celebration, my apologies but my addled brain can only do so much. Why am I addled, you might ask? (At least more than normal, Carol might add.) You see I just got off a “thrilling” airboat ride in unseasonably cool weather right after a heavy thunderstorm.
No, Carol and I didn’t succumb to a sudden impulse to explore the Everglades, instead I was guilted (per usual) into the excursion by my visiting son Josh who insisted it would be a fun experience for my youngest grandson Wyatt, promising him his first up-close alligator encounter. So off we went accompanied by Josh’s wife Tori and my youngest sibling Shari. Carol (who possesses no accessible guilt gene), of course, pleaded the work excuse since her last visit to the Everglades had ended in a mosquito swarm.
It’s funny, when I think of an airboat trip I think about alligators, fish, turtles. But the one thing I completely forgot about was that it’s really all about the birds. And if there is one thing my sister Shari has always been freaked out by – it is birds. This is a woman who won’t even walk into Pet Supermarket because of the caged parakeets. But as the tour proceeded, it quickly became apparent she was in for some serious “cold turkey” trauma treatment. I can honestly say Shari probably is the first person on an Everglades tour who never opened her eyes because it was birds on steroids. But with Shari on the verge of hysteria and Wyatt totally discouraged by the lack of alligators, one lone reptile finally saved the day. Now I don’t want to cast aspersions on our tour guy, but just when we thought all was lost, he steered us into a completely vacant swamp area just in time to see one lone gator raise his pointed stout, take a big yawn and re-submerge. (Between you and me, I think the gator’s brother does time at the Jungle Cruise ride in Disneyworld.) But mission accomplished, we came, we saw a gator, and Shari’s therapy for ornithophobia will continue.
Charles Felix can be reached at Charles@southfloridahospitalnews.com.
