When I go to sleep at night now, I feel worry and dread. It’s not stress from work. Or worry about crime. Or even the terrorists.
I’m scared of the alligators.
Now you may say I’m crazy. There are no alligators roaming around the Hanover area.
That’s what they want you to think. And that’s what Long Island, N.Y., resident James McGinn thought a few weeks ago.
You see, McGinn was just heading out to his front lawn to get his newspaper when he found a three-foot alligator sitting there. In Long Island.
If you live in Florida or somewhere else down south, I guess you can accept finding a gator on your front lawn. But people move to places like Long Island specifically to not have alligators on their front lawn in the morning.
Luckily, I only have to take a few steps onto our porch to get the paper. Still, I don’t think it matters if your paper is on your porch or on your front lawn, an alligator is not exactly what you want to see.
Especially if you are the paper carrier. Just ask Bobby Kish from Pottstown, who encountered one of the critters on his morning paper route last month.
Poor guy was just trying to deliver the paper when he made a bad toss and missed someone’s lawn. As he went to retrieve the errant thrown, he heard a hissing sound. That was the four-foot gator hiding under a nearby car.
If you think that’s bad, imagine the conversation when the police officers who responded had to call their chief to find out what to do with the animal. Imagine how the conversation before that phone call went.
“You call him.”
“No, you call him.”
“I’m not having him make fun of me.”
“Do you think I’m stupid?”
Regardless of how things went, one “Al E. Gator” was taken away in the prison wagon that day before going to a private animal facility in nearby Wilkes-Barre.
At least the folks in Pennsylvania could find their alligator. Los Angeles officials have searched for Reggie the alligator since October.
Reggie is an abandoned pet reported to have taken up residence in Machado Lake in L.A. He is a folk hero with a “Save Reggie” blog taking up his cause.
Reggie has survived without capture for so long that Steve Irwin, TV’s Crocodile Hunter,” has staked his reputation on an offer to catch Reggie.
So, far the city has not taken him up on his offer. That’s probably because, as a city councilwoman puts it, “my money’s on the gator.”
In reality, no one knows anything about Reggie. No one knows if the gator is a male or female. No one knows how big the animal is. No one knows if he even exists.
He has to because I see Reggie in my nightmares, alongside the gators in Long Island and Pottstown.
Maybe the gators are mad because we all keep coming down to Disney. I don’t know why they are coming up here after us. All I want to do is read the newspaper in peace.