I came from a real tough neighborhood. Once a guy pulled a knife on me.
I knew he wasn’t a professional, the knife had butter on it. – Rodney Dangerfield
Florida is the most dangerous state in the country. This year, one in twelve residents of the Sunshine State will be a victim of serious crime. Call that The Law of Averages.
Florida law enforcement is something else. In Sarasota short years ago, you recall four armed officers arrested Pee Wee Herman for playing with himself without a hat in a darkened adult movie theater. A misdemeanor.
That night’s triple feature, by the way, at the XXX South Trail Cinema was: “Tiger Shark,” “Turn On The Heat” and “Nancy Nurse,” starring Sandra Scream. One thumb up.
Now they’ve cracked down on T-Back, or Thong, Bikinis. Butt floss. Tight-cheeked (facial) officials and female clothing store dummies met in St. Augustine to determine which body parts must be covered up. For sure, we’ve seen the last of tight cheeks (gluteal) in St. Johns County.
Where did authorities draw the line? Here’s how part of the ordinance read.
“Buttocks. The area at the rear of the human body which lies between two imaginary lines running parallel to the ground when a person is standing, the first or top of such line drawn at the top of the cleavage of the nates (i.e., the prominence formed by the muscles running from the back of the hip to the back of the leg) and the second or bottom line drawn at the lowest visible point of this cleavage or the lowest point of the curvature of the fleshy protuberance, whichever is lower, and between two imaginary lines on each side of the body, which lines are perpendicular to the ground and to the horizontal lines described above, and which perpendicular lines are drawn through the point at which each meets the other side of each leg.” No buts about it, tight jeans have lost a bit of their sparkle.
Palm Beach County Commissioners decided to let hot dog vendors keep their bikinis. But vendors have to sell their weenies from behind a four-foot opaque enclosure. Expect to see some outrageous high heels. These civic leaders are the same folks who directed lilac-scented chemicals be added to the local sewer system.
In West Palm Beach, a sheriff’s deputy resigned after several women motorists claimed he pulled them over and ordered them to expose their breasts. Just good police work, the officer claimed. He was looking for a lady bank robber with a tattoo on her chest.
Manatee County officials went looking for an injunction when Captain Video went topless. The video store, at the corner of U.S. 301 and Ellenton-Gillette Road, staffed by bare-chested female clerks, saw rentals quadruple.
Elsewhere. In Clearwater, a woman was arrested, jailed and strip-searched for not licensing her dead cat.
In Boca Raton, a headline: POLICE CALLED WHEN WHIPPED CREAM FIGHT GETS UGLY.
Jacksonville police killed a man who was playing his Glenn Miller album too loudly. The big band lover opened fire first. The song he heard next was Taps.
The Port Canaveral bomb squad spent many an anxious moment trying to defuse a pot roast.
Fourth graders at Lake Orienta Elementary School were frisked, patted down, and told to remove their shoes by a security guard looking for a teacher’s lost $2.
Three members of the state legislature, all from the Jacksonville area, proposed a bill which would have allowed teachers to use stun guns on students.
In an apartment complex in Carrollwood, neighbors whispered that a couple was having sex with the blinds open. One man recorded the action on his camcorder. The amorous couple was arrested for disorderly conduct.
A mall in Melbourne accused two brothers with canes of fraud for pretending to be sightless. The two were kicked out of the mall for soliciting. Mall officials later learned the men really were blind.
In Spinalta, late one Saturday night after a gig, a drunken drummer in a local heavy metal band decided to get naked and test his brand-new electric weed whacker. A police spokesman referred to the man’s self-inflicted emasculation as a “bizarre gardening accident.”
The head psychiatrist of the Florida prison system was arrested for breaking into his girlfriend’s house where he threatened to stab her to death unless she returned the chocolate syrup, cigarettes and tuna fish he believed she’d stolen from him.
Homosexual prisoners in the Polk County are forced to wear pink identification bracelets based on their sexual preference. The policy came to light when six lesbians complained. Gays Blow Whistle. A sheriff’s spokeswoman said the pink color was just a coincidence: “It’s really an off-red.” To match the curtains, probably.
In Port Lucie, a tavern was cited for violating a noise ordinance when a woman sang “The Hokey Pokey” in a karaoke contest. Somebody left a door open to the street, where a police officer said the volume was so loud, he could actually understand the lyrics.
A twenty-five-pound block of frozen urine crashed through a Miami roof, landing in an unoccupied baby crib. Official suspicion points toward an air-liner. I say, piss on deregulation.
Finally. Now we know why they call hunting a “sport.” Three thousand permits were issued to cut Christmas trees in the Ocala National Forest. Concurrently, deer season opens. Rangers suggested clothing in a festive fluorescent orange.
For God sakes, authorities cautioned, don’t wear a fur.
The criminal is the creative artist; the detective only the critic. – G.K. Chesterton