Welcome to Wednesday, colloquially known as "Tuesday's Saturday" among people who hate their jobs and lives.
St. Pete Mayor Rick Kriseman had a small plaque mentioning Confederate general Stonewall Jackson removed from public property downtown at Central and Bayshore. Expect people who'd never noticed the damned thing was there to have a really strong opinion about this in 3, 2, 1...
The city of Tampa was ranked the second-best place in the country to retire by WalletHub.com, right behind Orlando. Man, it seems like a lot of data-crunching went into this report on something none of us are gonna get to do. (Also, who the hell wants to retire to Orlando?)
The Lakeland Polk County Government Center was evacuated yesterday due to a potential hazmat situation during which a reported 16 people were exposed to an "unknown white powder." No hazardous chemicals were found, though the authorities continue to investigate. I wonder if there's one person in every government office that freaks out every time they see drywall dust that drifted down from the maintenance on the third floor. "Dammit Gene, you just saw me spill a Goody's headache powder on my desk!" "I know, but we've got a protocol... "
And finally, we have a new contender for Florida Man 2017: A report broke yesterday that a 24-year-old male exotic dancer from Tampa stabbed his 67-year-old partner in the eyes during an altercation Monday night at the older man's Key West home, after he somehow became convinced the man was a cannibal. Is it wrong to assume that drugs were involved? That would be presumptuous, wouldn't it? It would. To think drugs might be involved in the story about the young go-go dancer who suddenly got paranoid about his boyfriend maybe eating people and stabbed him in the eyes with a pen? Yes, let's not jump to conclusions.
