Many years ago, I traveled to Florida with my girlfriend, who was not a Florida native. We stopped at a Cracker Barrel to get some food. There was a retention pond there.

“Why’d they put an alligator statue in the retention pond?” she asked me.

I said, “That’s not a statue. This is Florida. That’s an alligator just hangin’ out.”

She didn’t believe me. She insisted that alligators wouldn’t just be around; that did not make sense to her. But she believed me when I threw a stick at the creature and it started swimming. “Oh my god, that’s a real live alligator!” she nearly screamed.

Welcome to Florida.