I got my wife a lot of nice things for Christmas. I always do. I’m a nice guy. I buy nice things.
I got her a spa package, and a calendar with very bizarre chickens in it, and a book the size of a garbage dumpster with every cartoon that has ever been published in The New Yorker.
They were nice gifts. I spent a lot of time thinking about them. But I don’t think anything she got this year came close to something her mother got her — a year’s pass to the St. Augustine Alligator Farm.
Her eyes lit up like a little kid and she blurted out, “YES! Just what I wanted.”
“Eh?” was my reaction.
I had never been to the alligator farm in all the years I’ve lived in St. Augustine. And neither had my wife. She has been talking about it since about the day we met, but I had never taken her. A strike against me, but it didn’t seem like the kind of place you take a girl on a date — “And over here is another reptile who can rip off your limbs before drowning you. Feel like making out during the animal show?”
So when her sister came to town, she went without me, and now she’s a regular Crocodile Hunter. She wants the newsletter. She wants to work there. She wants to raise alligators and teach them how to be civilized and knit. She wants to give them all names and start a fund to get all the snaggle-toothed ones braces.
And now she has a year-round pass so she can go all the time and study them and talk to them and give them love.
Eh?
Although, not to sound like an advertisement for the Alligator Farm, but I went there this past weekend and … well … I’m a little bit hooked myself.
What is it about big, ugly reptiles who spend most of their life sleeping that is so darn exciting? Nothing, really. I don’t get it. But I was mesmerized.
Pools of young alligators, their eyes like a bowl full of black marbles, gazed up at me, just hoping I would lean over the railing too far. They have these little pellet-food dispensers where you put a quarter in and get a handful of foul-smelling niblets that the fellas’ absolutely love. I thought it was great, but I would pay extra to be able to throw a corn dog in there.
I got to know the Cuban crocodile, who likes to rhumba and smoke the occasional cigar. I stared at the needle-nosed crocs who look like someone took their snouts and squeezed them as if it was Play-Doh.
And then there was the alligator feeding show when a park employee throws big chunks of nutria at the gators. One’s name was Lock Jaw and another stood halfway out of the water right below the platform. He reminded me of my dog on Thanksgiving while I’m carving the turkey. He was ramrod straight, not a bone in his body moving with his eyes locked-on. I’m sure his brain was screaming, “Gimme’ one, come on. Right here. I’m right here! Pleasssse!”
Here he is the size of a school bus and he’s behavin’ like my little dog. I almost ran up and screamed, “Stop beggin’, get away from the table and stay out of the garbage can.”
Are dogs and alligators that different?
I’ll tell you one way: A dog would never stand for a turtle riding around on his back like the captain of a ship sunning himself.
Swat him off? You’re an alligator! Have some dignity. You’re a big, ferocious beast. I’ll have to take this up with them next time. I have a feeling we’re gonna’ be spending a lot of time there, especially if we’re gonna’ get the snaggle-toothed one braces.