Florida Man shook himself awake to the sound of cops banging on the door. Shit. Pausing only long enough to see whether he had pants to keep the police dog from chewing on his nuts if it was going to be that kind of chase, he staggered away from the sound of knocking. Where the Hell was he anyways? It was like he was in a boat, but it wasn’t rocking. Fuck. He hoped it wasn’t the FWC. The Grouper Troupers have all sorts of fun motorized vehicles that make escaping on foot (or by swimming) hard.
Oh look, Florida Man, thought. I am in a boat. It’s just grounded. That makes sense, but you can’t assume things about what people will build for a house in Florida. Throwing a leg over the side, FM saw that there were cops waiting for him.
“Please, bro. Don’t tase me!” Florida Man called, throwing up his hands and falling to his knees. “I’ve got a bitchin’ headache, my mouth tastes like a bus driver’s ass smells, and people spent all day yesterday punching the shit out of me.”
A deputy approached and said, “Sir, is this your boat?”
“Nope. Never seen it before in my life.”
“So you don’t know whose boat this is? Because it seems to be lying on its side in the middle of a beach. Do you know how it got here?”
Florida Man thought fast.
“No, sir. I, uh, had just come aboard right before you got here to see if anyone was here or hurt. It does seem strange to come upon a nice boat like this on Daytona Beach.”
The deputy was giving him the cop stare, hoping Florida Man would get nervous and say something else. The silence went on for half a minute. Then one of the other deputies walked up and said, “Hey, aren’t you that guy who got beat up yesterday at that softball game?”
FM nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “That was me. I’m a little unclear on the in-between. I had, like, a bunch of 4Lokos and blacked out.”
The second deputy said, “Well, anyone who is friends with a Polk County Sheriff’s deputy is friends with me. We ain’t kick your ass for trying to a good deed up here. You can go and have a nice day.”
Florida Man turned and started walking away, amazed at his dumb luck.
“Hey, boy!” A deputy shouted.
Florida Man tensed to run, but turned around, his face a rictus grin of fear.
“I think you dropped your cell phone and your wallet while you was in there!”
Florida Man walked back to retrieve his phone and wallet, certain he was going to jail yet again.
“You okay, boy?” The deputy with his possessions asked.
“Yeah, I, uh. Bad seafood. I’m gonna have to find somewhere soon.”
Florida Man retrieved his phone and wallet. He did a fine impression of a man with a bad shrimp about to paint his pants walking away. Thank goodness that the average Florida cop was recruited from the same pool as his minions, he thought, scrolling through his phone. It was the only thing that gave him the slightest hope of one day ruling all that the Mouse did not claim.
Florida Man returned to consciousness to that special headache and muscle pain that he knew from experience as the after-effects of electrocution. Judging by the pain in his back, someone had either jammed a taser or live wire into the base of his spine. He tried to move his right hand to explore the spot, but it wasn’t moving. Oh shit! He was paralyzed! Never to shoot a block of tannerite from way to close again. Wait, wait.
