Welcome to Miami 🌴

No, I didn’t decide to extend my mini vacay so I could write this from a South Florida beach, as much as I wish I would have.

I have, however, had the 1997 Will Smith smash hit “Welcome to Miami” stuck in my head for days now knowing that’s where a hefty portion of today’s stories are based.

As much as I love the art and culture of the Magic City, I wouldn’t want to live somewhere where these kind of things happen on the reg. I’ll stick to Orlando thankyouverymuch. Besides, the cost of parking alone in Miami would bankrupt me.

Also as a side note, I was today years old when I learned that the line in that song that I thought was straight gibberish as a child is actually just the Spanish version of the title, “Bienvenidos a Miami.” Why didn’t you guys tell me OR correct me last week when I got my gangster movie horse head reference wrong? I guess I did say I was only 73% sure. Thanks to my girl Debra for setting me straight on that one.

✈️ Attention passengers

Please sit down, put on your masks and shut your yap. I bet that’s what every flight attendant wishes they could say. Heck, I even wish I could say it but God forbid I get involved in something like this and end up the subject of a not-so-flattering viral video. The woman above came fully prepared for her flight with her neck pillow in tow all ready to go and wrapped around her neck but wearing her mask proved to be more difficult. According to the footage of the fight, the passenger was so upset about the safety protocols that she hit a flight attendant in the face. What did this stunt get her? Nothing good. The flight was delayed, causing an inconvenience to every single man, woman and child on board, and she and her traveling companion were ultimately asked to get the frick off the flight out of Miami. Not the way you want to start your vacation, if you ask me.

🗿 Next stop

JK, we’re not going anywhere for this next one, we’re staying right at the Miami International Airport, where actual ancient artifacts were intercepted. Honestly those are a little spooky looking and could probably be part of a very involved stone sculpture-themed Halloween display. Someone who’s more creative than I am needs to get on that stat, the kids and archeologists will love it. Back to the facts though, these “Ikom Monoliths” that date back anywhere from 200 A.D. to 1000 A.D. were recently intercepted by customs after it was discovered that they were shipped using phony documents. Now they’re being shipped back to the central African nation from whence they came. Obviously I’ve never handled something this old since I’m very clumsy but I’m going to make an educated guess that these things are super duper valuable, so why just ship them like that? Next time, travel with your ancient contraband.

🧙‍♀️ Witchin'

Since we were just talking about Halloween, I figured I’d hit you all with this one next. Look at that little lady in the sky with her broom stick and her pointy hat. Remind you of anyone? You better not say me, it’ll hurt my feelings even though I would love to have some witchy powers to, say, have my bank account instantly replenish itself any time I do some online shopping or make salads taste like doughnuts so I could be skinny all the time. A girl can dream, right? A News 6 viewer sent us that picture of a wicked cloud formation flying around the sky in Winter Garden and pretty much everyone agrees it looks like one of the Sanderson sisters from “Hocus Pocus.” You can let us know what you see by voting in our poll here.

😷 Aaand we’re back

To Miami, that is. And back to government employees doing questionable things while on the job, which was a topic we touched on last week, too. I won’t bore you all with the same spiel. This picture is exactly what it looks like: A Florida cop wore a Trump 2020 face mask, complete with a profanity on it, while in uniform at a polling location. Again, I don’t need to spell out why exactly some voters might find that intimidating or questionable, no matter which candidate was being promoted. It seems the mayor of Miami agreed because the officer is now in hot water. Someone tell me though, how many more times is something like this going to happen between now and Nov. 3?

🐍 Two-headed boy

That Neutral Milk Hotel title is yet another song I’ve had playing on repeat between my ears since I wrote this story earlier this week. That magnificent creature is an absolute rarity that was recently found inside a Florida home after the family’s cat dragged it in as a gift. That family named the mini black racer Dos, you know, because of the two heads, and set up a habitat for it to thrive in until state wildlife officials could come and scoop it up since it’s unlikely to survive in the wild. Stories like this make me so glad Jasmine is an inside cat because I don’t know what I would do if she plopped something like this down on my pillow. Someone would get her bird videos and cat condo taken away as punishment, that’s for sure. Maybe I’m tired or just plain delirious but the more I look at little Dos, the cuter it gets, right? Check out more pictures and let me know what you think.

🧼 Spiked drink

Any kind of food or beverage that’s been tampered with is gonna be a no from me, dawg. The inmate who filed this lawsuit claims she had no idea a corrections officer who she’d been arguing with earlier sprayed bleach on her cup and food tray before it was handed to her. In fact, it wasn’t until she took a sip of her drink that she realized something was terribly wrong. Yuck, I can’t imagine how that must have tasted. 🤢 Ultimately the inmate ended up going to a nurse, the corrections officer who reportedly sprayed the bleach ended up behind bars on a poisoning charge and now there’s a big, fat lawsuit to top it all off. With some high-profile attorneys involved, this one should get interesting.

All this talk about Miami and it made me realize that I don’t know where most of you guys are from. I was born and raised in Bradenton, moved to Myakka my senior year of high school then relocated to Orlando in 2009 for college and I’ve been here ever since. Shoot me a line to let me know what part of Florida you hail from.