Nature Always Strikes Twice!

So, not long ago we decided to make it an all day family affair and go to the beach for some quality time under that big ass fusion fireball in the sky. Now, in Florida you don't have to travel for any length of time before you chance upon a beach, but since we wanted to take the dogs we actually did some research first to see if there were any good pet beaches around.

Turns out there is this, supposedly great, "award winning" beach in a national gated park only 5 minutes away. It comes complete with a designated dog beach and everything. (This is how gay I have become.)

OK, so we went there, paid the man in the booth $5, and he opened the gate for us with a smile and a salute. (I might have imagined the salute though)

In we went, all happy and shit, ready for the beach. We followed the signs to the pet beach, but, of course, my wife got lost and we overshot it. As we were going back towards it, we saw this huge ass branch lying across the road, almost stretching from one side to the other. Strange, it wasn't there before. We crawled up towards it and I was getting ready to go out to kick it to the side of the road since it was too big to run over, when the thing MOVED!

It was a fucking RATTLESNAKE!

Not some little lame ass weak-toothed garden snake either, like the one that had us cooped up inside the safety of our house for a month last year when we saw it on the porch... No, a HUGE ASS FUCKING RATTLESNAKE.

I looked around for the fucking camera crew, waiting for that Discovery Channel Krikey Maniac to sack this fucking snake and wrestle it into a cage or something. Some motherfucker better yell “Cut” sometime soon!

No such luck. It was an actual live rattlesnake. A freak of nature. A monstrosity from Hell put on that road to mock us. Imagine a python with a fucking maracas duct taped to his ass! Fangs to make a walrus envious. That's what he looked like. A mean motherfucker. Fat and angry. Like he just ate two Springer Spaniels and had an upset stomach.

So, being the tough city folks we are, the whole family screamed like a bunch of girls and the dogs lost their minds while trying to claw their way out through the windows. It was a Kodak moment. Pass the camera.

My wife started honking at the snake, slightly hysterical - might I add - but to no avail. She screamed "MOVE IT YOU FUCKING NASTY THING!", but the snake only glared at her with its reptilian evil eyes. "Yeah, right. What am I, your nigger?" it seemed to ask.

We couldn’t run it over, ‘cause with my luck with animals the fucking thing would surely have gotten stuck in the wheelhouse and bitten me to death with its last dying breath as I try to pull it out later. We were fucked.

Fortunately some other cars came rolling from the other side and the foul thing obviously felt outnumbered and moseyed his lazy ass off the road and into the bushes on the side - right where it said "Trail to Pet Beach".

I don't fucking think so.

We went to Hollywood Video and rented “The Exorcist” instead. Then we went home and pulled the blinds to shield us from the cacophony of the nastiness of nature outside.

Fucking Florida. No way were we EVER going out there again!

We stayed indoors for a full week, eating whatever junk we found in the cupboards, rocking back and forth and playing with our fingers.

Then, when we ran out of food, we tried again.

Yup. That’s right. We braved the evil forces of nature once again.

See, you gotta cuddle that inner Okie, get in touch with your spiritual ancestors and all that shit (which in my case are bunch of nun-raping Vikings and in my wife’s case a bunch of Italian gangsters – but still).

We were not some meek ass city slickers anymore. We're the Real Deal Floridians now, right? We could do this shit. If these people could hang with the vile things in their natural habitat, then, by God, so could we!

Right?

No, we really couldn't.

Let me give you a blow by blow recap of the joyful repeat offense:

This time we go to an inland park - "the hummanuhum-whatever park" - loaded with actual “shelters” with barbecue areas and mowed lawns. A real park. Not some goddamn marsh land with the occasional moccasin trail. No, nature in a civilized format instead, the way it should be.

We park right next to the little shelter of our choice; a newly built grill area construction with a twenty foot overhead roof, concrete floor, benches to sit on and bathrooms around back. It’s right on the shore line of a big ass lake, so there’s a nice breeze going too.

Aaaahhh… Nature. Breathe that fresh air!

Look! Here come the squirrels! How cute they are!

So we sit there for a good hour watching the kid feeding the amassing armies of furry rodents with cheese doodles and pretzels. It’s Fat Fest 2005 for these lazy ass squirrels. They are having a motherfucking blast.

Some weird looking exotic birds swoop down to get their fill. There is a blue one with a little top hat and a red one with a pearl necklace. There is also a big black one with huge ass mystic green feathers protruding from his head. That one is sitting very still on a branch a bit off in the distance, though, not moving at all. In short, the hills are alive with the sound of music and we’re pretty much just waiting for the animals to present Cinderella’s dress so we can take the damn picture.

Suddenly my wife cries out. “Awww! Look at the turtle!”

And lo and behold, out from the bushes and onto the trail (as if on cue – could he hear the music?) oozes this huge ass turtle. He looks at us, smiles and nods a hello, and then he drags his lazy ass up the path towards us. He goes off a little to the side, and my wife goes up to pet him. “Awwww! It’s a SHE! And she is gonna lay eggs! Grace, come here! Or not! I don’t know. Should we leave her alone?”
She backs off to a most respectable distance of 5 feet, the universally regulated “birth bubble”, and gazes upon this magical creature. We’re about to witness a miracle.

The turtle closes its eyes, as if to relish the moment, but also chewing back the pain… and out comes… a huge pile of turtle poop.

It smells like ass. Turtle ass.

At that moment a Park Ranger appears. “Hey, Sir. Don’t overfeed the squirrels, please.“

I look at him with an incredulous stare. “Why? They’ll be too fat for the Park Yearbook? Let them get fat. It’s good to be fat when you’re a squirrel.”

“No, Sir, but feeding them this much will make them braver and will make them fight for the scraps. And before you know it they could bite your hand.”

This picture has been photo-shopped for demonstrative purposes.
Grace would NEVER actually touch a real live fucking snake.
What snakes dream of.
Love was in the air. And birds...
"Shelter 10"
The outer limits of civilization, and as close to nature as we dared venture.
Almost like the Grace Family, but with more kids, less dogs, more smiles and less mayhem.
I look at him. I look at the cute little squirrel only a few feet away munching on his zesty Ranch Dorito. I look back at the Ranger again. “They bite?”

He nods solemnly. “Yup. And some of them squirrels carry rabies too. It has happened.”

MOTHERFUCKER!

I freak and vividly envision getting 14 rabies shots in my stomach because of these goddamn tree-rats. “Kid, stop feeding the fucking rodents! Put your feet up on the bench, honey. Get away from them!”

The Park Ranger looks disapprovingly around at our nutritionally challenged assortment of squirrel snackage. To make inane idle conversation (and avoid a fine for animal endangerment) I say, “See that bird over there?” I point at the big black bird with the intensely green feathers sticking out of his head. The fucking thing has been sitting on that branch for a while now, and I have never seen a bird like it. Not on Discovery Channel or anywhere else. Nature’s own mystery! “See that, Sir Park Ranger Officer, Sir? What the hell is that? With those big ass green feathers?” Hey, I’m thinking to myself, maybe I have discovered a new species? I could get rich here! It could be the Gargantuan Green Grace or something.
He looks at the bird. Looks at me. And looks back at the bird again. The bird chooses that exact moment to move sideways on the branch, revealing the fact that he indeed is a common fucking black ass stork or some shit. He has been sitting behind the uber-green foliage of some random twig that made him look like he had extra feathers. The Park Ranger shakes his head. “It’s a stork, Sir.”
I feel like an idiot now. “HAHAHA! I know. Fucking storks! As if I wouldn’t know that thing is a fucking stork.” I have to make up for my obvious lack of nature skills here. “Well, at least you don’t have rattlesnakes here, huh, chief?”

He lowers his shades and peers at me over the rim of his glasses, “Sir, this place is crawling with rattlers. Big ones too. But as long as you stay in the shade you’ll be fine. They usually only come out to bask in the sunny spots at this time of day.”

Motherfucking snakes! I knew it. The friendly squirrels, Cinderella’s birds, the preggers turtle… It had all been a charade to lull us into a false sense of security and lure us deeper into the woods. “What else is dangerous around here?” I manage to squeak out.

“Well,” he points up under the nook of the shelter’s roof, “see up there you have your Black Widows.” Then he points to where my wife is huddled up on top of a table, “and your wife is sitting in a migration of fire ants.”

That’s it. Nature can kiss my ass. “Thank you, Officer Smokey. We’ll be leaving now.”

We put our crap together, deciding not to bring the towels and blankets, just throw them out in the trash cans instead, in case they are loaded with scorpions, ticks and spiders. The Park Ranger leaves, shaking his head and muttering something unintelligible under his breath.

Just as we’re about to leave, a loud quack! is uttered most assertively from behind us. We look around, expecting anything at this point, and this beautiful greenish (no foliage this time) duck is serenely swimming towards us from behind a big black log. It has clever little eyes, that speak of great wisdom. It is almost as if it is trying to tell us that it’s all right. That Nature ain’t that bad once you get used to it. Take it in baby steps and all that, and you’ll be fine. I walk up to the water line, mesmerized by the Universe having chosen this unlikely little messenger to speak some sense into my concrete ass. Just as the duck disappears behind a patch of whatever the fuck grows in lakes by the shore I look to my right. There is a sign:
I look out into the water again. I can only guess that the sixth sense of my bladder sees it before I do, because from its rapid cramping I recognize that the log, only 10 feet out into the water, is indeed a big ass fucking alligator! A fucking monster! A Jurassic motherfucking dinosaur!  And here comes the duck out from behind it’s grass patch, zipping by the alligator and continuing on its swim towards me. The alligator opens his giant tooth-spangled maw, either to yawn or to laugh at me, and I am snapped out of my paralysis. Kinda…
What the fuck does this duck want? I notice to my horror that it is moving in an eerie mechanical way. It's almost like watching a suicide bomber on a surveillance camera, making his way through a crowd toward his intended target. Am I that target? And why is the alligatorial monstrosity laughing at me? How the fuck do you “molest” an alligator anyway? Move, Grace, move! No response from the trusty old body. I am frozen to the ground. Fear has me in a death grip by my balls. The family, still standing a good twenty feet behind me, has now finally seen what I already did. They are hollering hysterically for me to run! Run, Grace, run!
The duck is only a few feet away now. The alligator is gone. Not even rings on the water. Where the fuck did it go?

Realizing that nature has sent this duck to end my life, it must be rigged with Ebola or something, I finally jerk into action. I turn around and haul ass for the car, scooping up the wife and the kid as I pass them at the break neck speed of Swedish Light. We dive into the car, my wife frantically scrambling with her keys, me screaming “Go, go, go!”, the kid crying, and over it all… the duck quacking like a demented toad.

We ungracefully peel out, and as I look through the rear window I see the duck methodically gobbling up all the Cheeze Doodles still left there on the ground.

Shaken and stirred, we leave the park, vowing never to return again. The thuds of acorns and stale Doritos hitting the roof of our car as the squirrels  taunt our shameful departure comfort me in some odd way. Goodbye, cruel Nature! You can keep your free spirit shit.

I look over at my wife, smile and squeeze her hand. She has bird shit in her hair, but I figure now is not the time to tell her.

Home. Take us home.

Fuck Florida.

Jurassic Monstrosity.
Nature goes Jihad on Grace.
"These city folks are a bunch of fuckheads!"