At one point, Floridians were excited about drying out the Everglades to build more strip malls and “gated” developments with names like Quail East Gardens but eventually when scientists discovered that without the Everglades South Florida would be drinking exclusively rain water, it backed off its plan to make 100% of the state an overrun mess, and instead settled on making just 90% of the state an overrun mess.  The problem with backing off of this plan was that by the time Floridians realized they needed the swamp and its contents for survival they had already planted thousands of trees from Australia that drink several times their body weight and were designed to help dry out the Glades.  These trees, in addition to being on a suicide mission, are extremely resilient so the only way to eradicate them is by getting them to drink poison, which is hard to do when the city of Miami is also drinking from the same pond.   As you can probably tell, my recent fan boat trip in the everglades served as a cautionary tale about avoiding environmental destruction but even before it started, became more of a cautionary tale about getting old, and about the risks of having children, specifically annoying children.

While buying tickets for the tour my wife was nearly decapitated by an elderly couple whose need to purchase a bottle of water just then caused them to perform the South Florida Shuffle, which is where an old person, knowing damn well they are not in the front of a line, places themselves in the front of a line, often in a way that involves them appearing not to know what they are doing, and always in a way that involves physical contact with the younger person, assuming that the younger person behind them will not say anything out of deference for their oldness.  Anyone who wonders why Congress wouldn’t dream of tinkering with Social Security benefits for the almost and already-retired obviously hasn’t waited for a table at a Tony Roma’s in Kissimmee.

As we were waiting in line to board our craft I was situated next to an old woman wearing a visor fused to her head and speaking in sign language to her daughter, and a birdlike grandfather wearing a very patriotic hat, a dyed reddish mustache, and a belt buckle shouting “DAD” whose overall style reminded me of bowling alleys and cigarette smoking. These people had a very nice grandson who did some of the typical weird 11 year old boy stuff, but who was generally polite and quiet and happy and hell that his grandparents had relocated to South Florida from Minnesota.

I noticed this boy mostly because I was giggling to myself about his grandparents but also because I was already favorably comparing him to the gaggle of kids that had joined us at the pier and who were already giving me hives.

While Captain Charles was running the twin airplane engines at 4,000rpms the children were only slightly annoying, but as soon as we stopped to look for an alligator they started their onslaught by shouting, and then repeating, no less than 8 times, “OH NO, WE’RE OUT OF FUEL” in various shrill voices.  The problem with these kids was, first and foremost, that they were annoying, but it was also that their parents had clearly done nothing to disabuse them of their belief that they were in any way funny. 

The trouble with someone who thinks it high comedy to loudly and repeatedly make jokes about the boat being out of gas is that the only thing they think is funnier is loudly and repeatedly making clever one liners when faced with alligators.   Once again, horrible parents one and two did nothing to quell this comedic flood, but instead calmly pronounced in sotto voce, the name of their daughter, who was the slightly more annoying of the two. Surprisingly, this did not work to curb her behavior, and gave her the confidence she and her brother needed to turn our floating Everglades information session into a regular riot highlighted by the daughter interrupting Captain Charles on about 14 occasions to ask him if she could sell him, for $5,000, a piece of a cattail she annoyingly grabbed out of the water. 

At this, Minnesota Frank and his belt buckle were even starting to get flustered and made as good an effort at shutting up kids as a skinny old guy who’s not your grandfather can make, which was actually not a very good effort.  The info session was largely a wash due to the fact that Captain Charles was understandably distracted, but when it came time for Q&A Frank did not disappoint, first, telling the Captain that he once went charter fishing in Canada and that the guides there spoke to each other on radios, and then, looking into water that was obviously less than 2 feet deep, asked about the depth of the water, which he learned was “one to two feet”.

Despite our fellow tourists, the trip to the Everglades was generally a great time.  In fact, I can’t wait to return there with my future children, who after Friday, according to my wife, will not be discussed at any point in near term.