Enough is enough!

Three alligator attacks in as many weeks have created the usual shouts for revenge against the gators, pleas to lock up the children, and making the wearing of alligator shoes mandatory in all public schools.

As for the shoes, I say "If you can afford them, by all means wear them"; style hasn't been taught in those schools for about four decades. As for locking up the children, don't hesitate for another moment; I've been attacked by more children than reptiles since moving here. But the poor alligators?

To the best of my recollection, alligators (as opposed to nasty crocs) shy away from humans. They have a much better track record against poodles yelping at them at the edge of a canal. Do you know what you have to do to get bitten by an alligator? Be stupid.

I hate stupid people; they go around getting themselves into one mess after another and have to be bailed out. Exhibit number one is the first attack. Steven Martinez decided to supplement his income and gather lost golf balls in the bottom of a murky lake in Boynton Beach when he found that the resident alligator in that mud hole already had the concession and bit his ankle. A few days later an elderly lady fended off an alligator with the nozzle of her garden hose, but could not explain the bottle of gin in the other. And the other day, a Miss Juarez was supposedly attacked while jogging and dragged into a canal and devoured.

This had to be one fast alligator or one slow jogger, until it was revealed yesterday that the "jogger" had been seen sitting under a bridge, dangling her feet in the murky waters of a canal. You NEVER dangle anything in murky waters in Florida, but two innocent gators were quickly trapped and disemboweled. The first had a raccoon in its stomach and had undoubtedly saved some child from rabies, and the second had three tennis balls, and a deflated football in its (that's sad). Supposedly the rangers found the right one today, but you have to wonder if these ancient creatures are the modern world's natural predator of Stupid People. Stupid People multiplied like rabbits for many years under the protection of other Stupid People with guns. Nature fights back as best it can and we should applaud the alligator for stepping up to the plate in this one.