A wise man once said, "gather thy tacos while thou wilst, for nothing tasty begins with 'W,' except watermelon, and let's face it — that's hardly a meal."

So downtown St. Pete blew up yesterday. OK, it was just an underground transformer that exploded near Williams Park, sending lots of acrid smoke into the air and knocking out power downtown for a bit. This wasn't far from the underground fire that broke out Sunday. Was it the C.H.U.D.s? We strongly suspect the C.H.U.D.s.

Speaking of downtown St. Pete, somebody paid $6.9 million cash for the penthouse of Beach Drive luxury condo building Ovation — the largest amount ever paid for a condo in the 'Burg and the largest residential sale in town so far this year. Smart move, everybody knows the top floor is the farthest from the C.H.U.D.s.

A Sarasota Planned Parenthood office was evacuated after an "unknown substance" made several people sick. A hazmat team was called in; it turned out to be some poorly capped cleaning supplies leaking fumes into the air handlers. And who's responsible for that? No, not the C.H.U.D.s, silly, it was probably just a member of the cleaning crew. Sheesh.

And finally, a group of parents, administrators and teachers successfully ensured that every student of Pasco Middle School will read Stephen Chbosky's The Perks of Being a Wallflower — by banning it. *Checks calendar to confirm what year it is, and sighs*

This article appears in May 19-26, 2016.