Every once in a while, when Vince and I are scientifically selecting the perfect story for Florida Friday, a news item pops up that just brightens our entire day like one wild highway fire on the outskirts of Gainesville. We call it the “Flawless Florida Fable” – okay, neither of us calls it that, but it sounds right – and today we may have the most flawless Florida fable of them all.

A 49-year old man in Deltona – think the grundle between Orlando’s sac and Daytona’s b-hole – was arrested for stabbing his own brother earlier this week, after the two got into a heated dispute in their home. Randy Zipperer, which is like the most perfect old timey porn name, grabbed a steak knife and stabbed his 47-year old brother in the gut for the most Florida reason you will ever read…

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It’s a story as old as time – man meets girl, man and girl fall in love, man tells girl that he wants to propose to her, woman tells man where to do it, man shows up naked and man winds up in jail. And, of course, it all happens in Florida.

Twenty-two year old Casselberry (Orlando’s oddly-shaped testicle) man Thomas Edwards was arrested after homeowners found him naked inside their home, called the police and he spit on the officers when they arrived. The cops said they told Edwards to put his clothes on and that’s when he let the saliva fly, so naturally they hit him with the old stun gun.

So why, though, was Edwards naked in this random home? Because, he claims, he was planning to propose to his girlfriend and that’s the house where she told him to meet her. Edwards claimed that he arrived at the house and started getting naked on the patio so he could pop the question, because that is something that people do. One thing led to another and instead of becoming the happiest man in the world, Edwards was shot full of electricity.

And while I hate to speculate on news stories, my gut tells me that his girlfriend might not even exist at all. *spooky music*

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Today’s Florida Friday story is both compelling and incredibly Florida, but before I get to the compelling, let me first lay out what was so Florida about it: a Tampa jury acquitted a man who admitted killing his wife’s lover in his own house, and one of the first quotes is about how the acquitted man and his adulterous wife are going to celebrate by going to a waffle house:

Once Wald was released from jail, she said, he had promised her a special celebration. “Because my husband puts me first, he’s taking me to the Waffle House,” Flores said.

Damn, what is it with Floridians and waffles?

Now, the rest of this isn’t quite as funny, considering it deals with, you know, being able to legally commit murder because your state has insane laws, but here goes.

It was what amounted to a happy ending for the starring couple in a tragic and inimitably Floridian morality tale involving sex, liquor, self-defense law, erectile dysfunction and a man shot to death with his pants around his knees.

THE ARISTOCRATS!

After two days of testimony in Hillsborough Circuit Court, a jury decided [retired U.S. Army Lt. Col. Ralph Wald, 70] committed no crime when he fatally shot Walter Conley, 32, a man less than half his age, on March 10. Wald woke around midnight in his Brandon home and found Conley and Johnna Lynn Flores, 41, having sex on the floor in the living room. He took a .38 revolver from his bedroom and shot Conley in the stomach and head.

If you’d asked me yesterday, I would’ve told you “You know, I’m pretty sure that’s not allowed.”

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In a rare but exciting twist, I actually find myself sympathizing with the subject of today’s Florida Friday installment. Twenty-three year old Natasha Myers was arrested in Wesley Chapel – the Al Bab to Tampa’s Aleppo – after Pasco sheriff’s deputies reviewed security footage from a Publix parking lot and determined that she was the person responsible for vandalizing 63-year old Debra Streets’ silver Kia SUV.

Myers apparently fancied herself a bit of a vigilante when she used her key to draw a giant penis on the hood of Streets’ car after she was allegedly driving like a c-word. But Myers, in a strange display of Floridian manners, then walked into the Publix, asked the clerk for a Post-It note and wrote an explanation as to why Streets now has a big ol’ dong on her hood.

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The fun thing about selecting the subject of each installment of Florida Friday is that just as I’m about to start writing about one story, another story comes along and blows that out of the water. For example, there was the delightful woman who extended her well-wishes to Joakim Noah at the Miami Heat game the other night, as it was discovered that she was once accused by an Internet psychic of murdering her husband with a cocktail of cocaine and Ambien, among many other wonderful things, and then there was also a Central Florida restaurant that came under attack for serving tacos made from lion meat.

But I decided it would be more fun to both marry that woman and have lion tacos with her, so once I’ve accomplished that, I will have a follow-up post. In the meantime, let me introduce you to the subject of this week’s Florida Friday – 20-year old Brian Zuniga, who was pulled over at a traffic stop yesterday morning after cops spotted him swerving. Naturally, because it’s Florida, he ditched his car and ran. Then, because it’s Florida, he was attacked by an alligator.

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