Estimates put the Earth’s human population at around 7.5 billion. I’m starting with that because while you or I might see a dead alligator on the side of the road and decide to either leave it there and move on or contact the municipal authority responsible for its disposal, 7.5 billion people means enough genetic and psychological variation that there’s a good chunk of people who would think very differently. (Truth be told, we probably know some of those people, and we have probably been asked to stop inviting them to nice events.)
Take, for instance, the unnamed Florida Gulf Coast students in this story. Let’s address the sequence of events step by step, shall we?
1. "They just found it on the side of the road and thought it would be fun to take some photos with it”
Sure, let’s roll with that. Maybe you’re going to pose with the alligator on the side of the road as though you and it are about to drop the most fire rap album ever. Maybe you want to put the gator corpse on a slide at a playground. Maybe you’re going to Sonic, ordering food, then putting the food on the gator’s head and saying OMG SONIC’S NOT EVEN HIRING PEOPLE ANYMORE.
The point is, there are tons of photo opportunities with a dead alligator that don’t require you to drag it into the place where you sleep.
2. “According to campus police, the students were at first untruthful about how the dead alligator ended up in their dorm.” (from this story)
I can appreciate college students who think they can lie to the police. It comes from a place of self-confidence, a place that says “yes, I can convince someone else that this gator broke into our dorm room and tried to steal our dorm fridge but I shot it and that’s stand your ground.” I resent that the police won’t tell us what story they made up, because their reticence probably means the story was really really fucking dumb.
3. “...took it to a university dorm room, snapped pictures of it and posted a photo on social media.”
The story contains a picture of the dead alligator on someone’s made bed. Does this person ever have any expectation of getting laid again? Am I so far removed from college that I’m grossly overestimating the effect this has on how likely you are to hook up? Is there a gender difference (college women would absolutely not hook up in a bed that previously held a dead alligator; college men would not even notice if the dead alligator was still in the bed) or am I being too limited in my thinking?
4. “FWC gave the three students warnings for possession of an alligator without proper permits.”
WHY DO YOU NEED A PERMIT TO HAVE A DEAD ALLIGATOR
HOW ARE SUCH PERMITS AWARDED
ARE THERE REALLY PEOPLE WHO HAVE GOTTEN OUT OF LEGAL TROUBLE BECAUSE THEY COULD PRESENT A STATE-CERTIFIED ALLIGATOR CORPSEHOLDER CARD
IS THIS LIKE A LEARNER’S PERMIT BEFORE YOU GET A LIVE ALLIGATOR PERMIT
WHICH STATE LEGISLATOR INTRODUCED THE FLORIDA LARGE DEAD REPTILE ACT
WHAT WAS THE FLOOR DEBATE LIKE
AND WHAT GODFORSAKEN INDUSTRY WAS LINING THAT LEGISLATOR’S POCKET TO GET THIS LAW PASSED
Thank you. That is all.