STORY TIME : Last night I got a phone call from a dear old friend of mine in Florida named John Anderson. Right after I moved to Miami and before I started fishing in the Keys I met John. He had just moved down to Miami from Pennsylvania. I met him as a complete stranger at the east coast version of 7/11 a place called U-Totem. At the time he hadn't found a job or a place to stay yet. I was living with my girl friend at the time, in a three bedroom house in Miami Lakes. I asked John if he wanted to stay in one of my spare rooms until he got on his feet. Times were a lot different then, I'm not sure I would do that now, but probably. He absolutely could not believe a complete stranger would do this for him. With in two week he got a great job , his own apartment and was out of my house. We have remained close friends ever sense. ON with the story : So he called me last night and we were doing what old friends do - Hey remember the time, and oh yea remember that time, and we went on for about an hour. It was great fun. During the remember the time Bull Shit he reminded me of some thing we did I forgot all about. It is in the top 10 funniest things I have ever seen. (im laughing so hard right now I can hardly type ) Alright here we go - Back in the day the Corp of Engineers built a two lane road across the Everglades to Naples Fla. A similar two lane road was all ready from Tampa to Naples and when they connected the two, they named it the Tamiami Trail. Much later they built a four lane Hwy from Fort Lauderdale, straight as a arrow across the Everglades to the east coast and they named it Alligator Alley, which goes right to a place in the middle of the state called Bellglades. Ok now the Tamiami Trail meanders thru Indian Reservations, Air Boat rides, Big Cypress National Forest and a bunch of tourist crap. Where ever there are tourist's and water in the Glades, there are Alligators because they feed them. John and my self spent I don't know how many weekends on Tamiami Trail trying to catch baby Alligator's for pets. Those little bastards are so fast we never came close. I mean you cant chase um in the water, Mom's just around the corner some where. Any way John's cousin had hitch hiked from Bellglades to John's house for a visit. On Friday John had purchased a brand new 1986 Ford Econoline Van for work. All it had in it was the drivers seat and the passenger seat, no paneling, no carpet or any thing. He going to give his cousin a ride back to Bellglades to break in the van and to put a few miles on it. He calls me sunday morning EARLY and begs me to go so he doesn't have to ride all the way back alone. I say yes, of course, and they come and pick me up. As we get on Alligator Alley me and John start talking about our trials and tribulations trying to catch baby alligators. His dumb ass cousin makes the statement, " Oh I could catch an alligator no problem ". Now you gota picture, ok Alligator Alley is a raised four lane hwy with a double yellow line down the middle, an emergency lane on both sides and sloping grass on the sides straight into the water. Ok here we go. About 2 miles in there's a 6 ft gator layed up on the grass on the opposite side of the road. I say to John's cousin " I suppose you could catch that gator " he says " your damn right I could catch that gator " John yells BULLSHIT!!!! and whips a U in the van. Now this stupid ass kid opens the sliding door of the van. He's got one hand on the frame by the passenger window and the other hand on the sliding door and he's poised and ready to go. As John pulls up by the gator this ass hole jumps out of the van and on a dead run, beats the gator to the water grabs it by the tail (SWEAR TO GOD) and starts spinning in a circle yelling "What do you want me to do now" Now John in a moment of ultament Stupidity says through him in the van. The kid through's that sucker in the van and John slams the side door shut. About the time John took a breath the gator took his tail and put an extremely large dent from the inside out in the side of John's brand new van. Now this gator precedes to tear this van up. It bites the seats, it put so many dents in this van it looked like a bomb went off inside. Now me and the kid took off running and were about 100 yards away laughing are asses off. All we can hear is John screming Get This Fucking Thing Out of my Van. Now me and the kid aren't going any where near this van cause John is pissed and we cant stop laughing. After a half an hour or so the gator quiets down and John opens the drivers door and gets his keys out of the ignition. He then steps on the front bumper, gets on top of the van and on his belly crawls to the back of the van and unlocks the door then opened it. John stayed on the roof until the gator finely after 10 mins or so came strolling out and calmly walked back in the water and was gone. We took his cousin home and needless to say never went gator hunting again. And that is the honest to god truth. I hope you laughed as hard as I did. It took a long time to type this. Have a good bunch. Toast