For those of you who know the sunshine state well enough to understand the
title, you can skip to the second paragraph. If you are unfamiliar with the
inference, here is the Wikipedia explanation: “Florida Man is an Internet meme
first popularized in 2013, referring to an alleged prevalence of people
performing irrational, ridiculous, and maniacal actions in the U.S. state of
Florida.”
I will keep this Florida Man’s identity anonymous until the Florida Fish and
Wildlife Commission’s statute of limitations has run its course. This
particular Florida Man is a good friend who lives in the cold, cold north. In
this instance, north of Joe Robbie Stadium but south of the amusement parks of
Disneyland and Mar a Lago.
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| Bill Murray as Carl Spackler in Caddyshack the gopher played himself |
To enjoy this story fully, you need you to know that this is a kind and gentle soul who is also known to be somewhat frugal. You should also know that he has suffered in a war not unlike that of Carl Spackler of Caddyshack fame. His “gopher” happens to be iguanas. He has been “dealing” with them since he moved to his new home. Their most annoying trait is that these lizards run across the top of his pool screen enclosure and leave not-so-little “presents” everywhere. Then the rain slowly spreads the liquified fecal matter into the pool and surrounding patio. Just lovely.
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| Iguana in topor, stunned from cold weather |
Over the last several years he has refined an electric fence technology, using his Radio Shack (not Caddyshack) expertise, to humanely repel the invasive herbivorous lizards. As these pests are “illegals” from Mexico, he should have called ICE. This is sort of what he did, but I’m getting ahead of my story.
In a recent phone conversation with FM (Florida Man), he related his most recent reptile skirmish. As has been reported during this 2026 January-February Florida cold snap, iguanas have been “stunned” into a state of torpor, not unlike the physical and mental lethargy of our most famous cold-blooded Florida lizard. Yes, the orange reptile who lives at Mar a Lago.
It seems my friend ventured outside to survey his property early this day after temperatures had dropped below freezing. He noticed a tail protruding out of a rain downspout. As the visible fourteen inches of reptile did not include the body, this was a good-sized one. He put on some heavy gloves and pulled the comatose invader from the spout and placed it in a large bucket.
He then went to the Internet to look to see what he could do to humanely euthanize his pest. Somewhere in the vast reaches of this massive storehouse of misinformation he found his solution, ICE. While a call to immigration authorities would have been amusing, this solution involved dry ice.
The idea was simple. Place the iguana into a container with the dry ice and the “melting” frozen carbon dioxide gas would replace the oxygen to painlessly send his prisoner to iguana heaven. While the idea seemed simple, they don’t sell dry ice at the local Publix. After a bit more research he got an address of a place selling dry ice.
He and his wife got into their car and drove a half an hour to buy some dry ice. Much to their surprise, the smallest block they could purchase cost $40. As they had already invested over an hour in this pursuit, they splurged, got the ice, and made the trip home.
The dry ice was placed into the same bucket with the iguana. After several hours, a check of their captive found him frozen solid. Their ordeal was nearing an end. It is at this point in his story that the events are a bit unclear but he was made aware of a neighbor with a “stunned” iguana in his driveway. Walking to see his neighbor he noticed another iguana who had been run over in the street.
Florida Man was now seeing that the scope of the problem was getting out of hand. He had already invested hours of his time and watched his forty dollars literally evaporate. To quote Caddyshack's Bill Murray, I mean Carl Spackler, "I'm not a heretic; I'm a gopher assassin! To kill, you must know your enemy, and in this case my enemy is a varmint. And a varmint will never quit -- ever. They're like the Viet Cong -- Varmint Cong.".
With this inspiration, our Florida Man rose to the occasion, dragged the neighbors iguana into the street and ran over it with his car. He placed his three dead foreign invaders into a trash bag and placed them all into a large green rolling iguana coffin for pick up the next day. Donald Trump and Kristi Noem would have been proud.
