Well, kiddos, turns out this weekend wasn't that horrible after all. I mean, you need to overlook ICE losing more kids than were in Ray and Cathy's graduating high school classes combined, the continued horrors of the White House and the reality that all we could do last night was browse the web for Joe Biden/ Barack Obama memes, but other than that, this weekend didn't suck.
If you don't already have a dog or cat, here's one more way they can rescue you: Over by Stetson in Deland (that's right, the other Stetson, not the Gulfport law school), a women used her veterinarian to escape her abusive boyfriend, who had beaten the hell out of her the day before and held her captive at gunpoint until she convinced him the dog needed to go to the vet (to be clear, he didn't care she had a head injury that kept her in bed all day, but he was all-in for the dog). Once at the vet, she slipped a note to the staff, "Call the cops. My boyfriend is threatening me. He has a gun. Please don't let him know." Police arrested the boyfriend, Jeremy Floyd, and this morning he's still sitting in jail, awaiting someone to post his $57,000 bond, and not for the first time: Since first getting arrested (as an adult) in 2003, Floyd has racked up 13 more arrests, which have escalated from minor drug charges to grand theft to violence. If only someone could have seen the warning signs…
As predicted Friday, that subtropical storm had a name — actually, it had a name about an hour after we said it would — and that name is Alberto. In the Tampa Bay area, Alberto knocked over a pot of mums and ruined a lot of Memorial Day plans, but good news, kiddos: You can still honor those who died in active military service by observing a moment of remembrance at 3 p.m. today. Yeah, we know it's no picnic, but neither was war, as we understand it. Ask someone suffering from PTSD after the war or a war widow what they think of your picnic. Answer: They don't.
Across Florida, teenagers making us adults look like the impotent, unwilling-to-enact-real-change sellouts that we've all become staged a "die-in" at their local Publix Supermarkets, where shopping is a pleasure but their policy of repeatedly donating to self-proclaimed "NRA sellout" gubernatorial candidate Adam Putnam's campaign sucks. Led by Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School students — the ones who lived, that is — who are tired of waiting for adults to do anything to keep them safe, the die-in helped Publix source their heart and realize hey, maybe political lobbying isn't a great idea right now. Notice to the rest of America: These kids grew up in south Florida, inches from the Everglades. They deal with gators, water moccasins, and Marco Rubio every damn day. We advise not fucking with them.
This article appears in May 24-31, 2018.