It’s that time of year where people say you should bang on the hood of your car before starting it because a cat may have nestled up in next to the engine after you parked it.
Granted, I don’t really do it, and while I’ve been spared the horrific moment you hear a brief scream like Aunt Bethany’s cat in Christmas Vacation, I’ve heard some horror stories that sometimes get me thinking I should be paying more attention to feral cats in my neighborhood.
Down in Florida, there’s a lot of feral cats, between 6.3 and 9.6 million according to Animal Law, but that’s not what most people worry about when walking to their cars on a damp, cold, Sunshine State morning.
They’re thinking about Swamp Puppies.
Over 1 million alligators roam just about every body of water in Florida, and while they tend to stay in or near the pond, river, or lake they call home, at times they’ll set out on a journey to find a new body of water with better food or opportunities to find a mate.
We’ve seen a 9-footer caught in downtown Tampa, a mean one charge a hunter in the Georgia woods, and another who paid an early morning visit to a house just minutes from where I used to live, but it just dawned on me that I should have been checking under my car more often after a video came across my feed.
While there’s no context for this one, a passerby spotted a large alligator trying to wedge itself under a Ford Focus. Presumably it was pretty chilly out and the car was still hot from driving, so it’s not a terrible idea for the cold-blooded reptile, but it would certainly cause quite the scare when you try to back up and find a man-eating speed bump stopping you.
A quick Google search turns up a ton, and I mean a ton, of stories just like this.
This Tampa man found one under his truck, another person “took one look and noped right out of there” in Pinellas County, a woman in South Carolina saw one crawl under her SUV, I mean, truly the stories are endless.
If you live in alligator country, you may want to start checking under your car before hoping in. You wouldn’t want one of these guys grabbing onto an ankle and dragging you under the car that you still owe 21 months of payments on…
