When I go to sleep at night now, I feel worry and dread. \tIt\u2019s not stress from work. Or worry about crime. Or even the terrorists.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m scared of the alligators.<\/p>\n
Now you may say I\u2019m crazy. There are no alligators roaming around the Hanover area.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what they want you to think. And that\u2019s what Long Island, N.Y., resident James McGinn thought a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Luckily, I only have to take a few steps onto our porch to get the paper. Still, I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Poor guy was just trying to deliver the paper when he made a bad toss and missed someone\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
If you think that\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou call him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, you call him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not having him make fun of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDo you think I\u2019m stupid?\u201d<\/p>\n
Regardless of how things went, one \u201cAl E. Gator\u201d was taken away in the prison wagon that day before going to a private animal facility in nearby Wilkes-Barre.<\/p>\n
At least the folks in Pennsylvania could find their alligator. Los Angeles officials have searched for Reggie the alligator since October.<\/p>\n
Reggie is an abandoned pet reported to have taken up residence in Machado Lake in L.A. He is a folk hero with a \u201cSave Reggie\u201d blog taking up his cause.<\/p>\n
Reggie has survived without capture for so long that Steve Irwin, TV\u2019s Crocodile Hunter,\u201d has staked his reputation on an offer to catch Reggie.<\/p>\n
So, far the city has not taken him up on his offer. That\u2019s probably because, as a city councilwoman puts it, \u201cmy money\u2019s on the gator.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
He has to because I see Reggie in my nightmares, alongside the gators in Long Island and Pottstown.<\/p>\n
Maybe the gators are mad because we all keep coming down to Disney. I don\u2019t know why they are coming up here after us. All I want to do is read the newspaper in peace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
When I go to sleep at night now, I feel worry and dread. It\u2019s not stress from work. Or worry about crime. Or even the terrorists. I\u2019m scared of the alligators. Now you may say I\u2019m crazy. There are no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","wpcat-3-id"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regularguycolumn.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}