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Sour Orange Awards: And the morons are ...
By CRAIG PITTMAN and TOM ZUCCO, Times Staff Writers
Published December 28, 2007
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[John Corbitt | Times]
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When we here at the Sour Orange Awards (a post office box in Dade City) are not scanning the state for weird, wild and utterly stupid occurrences, we are being treated by a team of psychiatrists.
You see, every year, we're certain the Stupidity Well will finally run dry. But this being Florida, that never happens. Every year new moronic behavior comes along to trump the moronic behavior from the previous year. To wit: astronauts in diapers, politicians in bathroom stalls NOT named Larry Craig, and kidnapped dinosaurs.
The theme this year? What else? "Don't Tase me, bro!"
This is the 19th year of Sour Orange Awards, and once again, our basket of bizarro runneth over.
Go on, have a taste. You know you want to.
WE CHARGE EXTRA FOR THAT, THOUGH
A Port St. Lucie exotic dancer used CPR to revive a client who passed out during a private strip show.
TELL GOOFY TO BACK OFF
A grandmother was arrested at Disney World when security guards found a gun in her purse. The woman, a tourist from Pennsylvania, told investigators that she just forgot she was carrying the loaded silver Beretta .32-caliber semiautomatic handgun. She also had a knife and a pair of scissors.
I'VE GOT A FISH AND I'M NOT AFRAID TO USE IT
Two Destin men were fighting. One reached for the handiest weapon -- a catfish -- and threw it. The sharp fins stuck in the other man's back. Lifeguards cut away the fish and the victim was taken to a hospital.
OH GREAT, NOW THE FISH ARE ARMED
In June the Sarasota Police Department announced it had dumped 200 illegal guns into the Gulf of Mexico -- and got in trouble with the Environmental Protection Agency. Fumed a police spokesman: "We believe the story was more about taking 200 guns off the street, but people seemed to care more about us polluting the gulf."
IT KEPT STARING AT ME
A Bay County teenager was cited by state wildlife officers for attempting to kill a deer by illegal methods after he tried to run one over with his truck. It was actually a decoy.
THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR
A Winter Haven man was arrested after he allegedly ran over his neighbor's Christmas decorations and then shot the neighbor.
TWO GUYS WALK INTO A BATHROOM STALL ...
State Rep. Bob Allen, R-Merritt Island, joined an undercover deputy in the stall of a park bathroom and offered to pay $20 if the deputy would let Allen perform oral sex on the man. After his arrest, Allen told police he was only going along with what the deputy suggested because "this was a pretty stocky black guy, and there were a lot of other black guys around in the park."
HER NEW MANAGER: BOB ALLEN
According to police, after being ejected from an Ybor City club, former American Idol contestant Jessica Sierra punched an off-duty officer in the face, then spewed racial slurs and offered the arresting officers sexual favors if they would release her.
MAYBE BOB ALLEN WILL BUY ONE
Miami officials decided to demolish the Orange Bowl, home to some of the biggest and most memorable sports events in South Florida history, and sell off the pieces, including the urinals.
SHE NEEDS A PIECE OF THE ORANGE BOWL
Police said astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak wore diapers so she wouldn't have to stop while driving 950 miles from Houston to Orlando to confront a woman she considered to be a rival for the affections of a fellow astronaut. One of Nowak's attorneys said the diapers were left over from a batch her whole family had used two years earlier when they were evacuating their Houston home in the wake of Hurricane Rita and couldn't find a bathroom.
SHE SPENT IT ALL ON COOKIES
A former Girl Scout leader in Santa Rosa County used the Social Security numbers and birth dates of troop members to file fraudulent claims with the IRS and received more than $87,000, authorities said.
AT LEAST IT WASN'T TASED, BRO A Kenneth City police officer was reprimanded after witnesses said she pepper-sprayed a Muscovy duck. The acting chief explained that the officer could not be charged with animal abuse because "I don't have an injured duck. I can't do a cruelty to animals charge without a victim."
RACE DOESN'T ALWAYS GO TO THE SWIFT
Two-time NASCAR Busch Series champion Martin Truex Jr. was charged with disorderly intoxication after a Volusia County officer saw him urinate on a car. When the officer walked up to arrest Truex, he said, "I hope that's worth 100 bucks." Truex said it was and held out a $100 bill.
SHAGADELIC, BABY!
An investigation revealed that two Irish priests accused of misappropriating millions from a Florida church to pay for girlfriends and gambling briefly formed a mortgage company with another priest called Shag Inc. They listed the company's address as St. Patrick's Church near Palm Beach Gardens, where one of them served for 16 years.
ON THE PERMANENT "NAUGHTY" LIST
Teen vandals who slashed about 60 inflatable Christmas decorations in Seminole on New Year's Eve were arrested a few days later after police lifted fingerprints from a broken plastic candy cane.
TAKING A BITE OUT OF CRIME
Thieves in Altamonte Springs hit a CVS drugstore and got away with nearly $800 worth of Crest White-strips and electric toothbrushes. Explained a police spokesman: "Well, they are high-dollar items."
DUUUUUUDE!
A Hudson man was arrested after Pasco County deputies said he had turned his house into a marijuana farm and tampered with his electric meter to steal power for the grow lights. His name: Jason Robert Stoner.
DUDE-ETTE!
A Bradenton school bus driver who flunked a urine test said that the marijuana in her system could only have come from accidentally inhaling it in secondhand smoke from students who were puffing pot on her bus.
DR. THEBOOKS, I PRESUME?
The treasurer of the American Spaniel Club has admitted to embezzling more than $100,000 to support her addiction to Internet gambling, Pasco County deputies said. The arrest report identified the defendant as a professor at the University of Tampa, where she taught (ahem) accounting.
HOW NOT TO
An east Naples man trying to teach his 30-year-old stepdaughter to drive wound up knocked to the ground by her truck. She then backed over his leg and hit a building and a telephone box. Collier County deputies charged her with driving under the influence -- and driving without a license.
LIKE THE DRIVE-THROUGH WINDOW?
A valet accidentally drove an amputee's specially equipped car through a Pensacola hospital's front entrance, knocking the car's owner from his wheelchair.
BUT THE SERVICE WAS REALLY GOOD
A 27-year-old Pasco County waitress was charged with uttering a forged instrument and fraudulent use of a credit card after authorities say she added tips to 36 credit cards at the restaurant where she worked.
EXCEPT PUNTA GORDA HAS NO SKYLINE
A Punta Gorda police officer interrupted a couple's naked rendezvous on top of a 100-foot construction crane. The man, who worked at the site and had keys to the crane, told police he was photographing the city skyline.
IRRITABLE VOWEL SYNDROME
Miami's Downtown Development Authority approved a new logo that seeks to promote downtown by intentionally misspelling it as "DWNTWN MIAMI." The text message-like logo beat out more than a dozen other candidates. "Not having the O's makes it more creative," said one board member.
ACTUALLY IT'S PRONOUNCED "VA-JAY-JAY"
When the marquee at Atlantic Theatres in Atlantic Beach announced the next play would be The Vagina Monologues, one woman called the theater to say she was offended. So the theater changed the marquee to read The Hoohaa Monologues.
OUCH, THAT STINGS
A Cape Coral man trying to get rid of a nest of bees mixed a product called Real Kill Indoor Fogger with WD-40. The mixture became a "flame-thrower," police said, setting fire to the house.
NOW YOU KNOW WHY HE'S SINGLE
An Orlando man sued the singles club he joined because the women he met weren't up to his standards.
FRED FLINTSTONE NEEDS QUESTIONING
Someone stole a 4-foot-long dinosaur from Dinosaur World in Plant City. Employees said they couldn't figure out what the thief would do with it: "Hock it? Christmas decoration? Scare your pets?"
BUT CAN YOU BLAME HIM?
A Broward County judge involved in the Anna Nicole Smith paternity case was accused of smoking pot in Hollywood park.
"ISURE BIN STOOPID" IS STILL AVAILABLE
A Miami Beach man spent $325 trying to trademark the name "Obama bin Laden" so he could sell T-shirts and coffee mugs. But the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejected his application, ruling he would need permission from both Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden.
IT WAS IN THE BOOK OF NUMBERS
A couple who founded a network of 1,200 churches in Brazil were detained at the Miami International Airport on charges they tried to smuggle $56,000 into the United States without declaring it. Customs agents found one bundle of $9,000 tucked into the cover of the wife's Bible.
... SO PAINT IT
In the middle of this summer's drought, St. Petersburg code enforcement officials sent out letters notifying residents their yards weren't green enough.
CRUNK AND DISORDERLY
Rap star Foxy Brown was testing spray hair glue in the bathroom of a beauty supply store in Pembroke Pines when an employee told her the store was closing. Police said Miss Brown responded by squirting glue at him, then throwing things and, when he called 911, spitting on him. Another employee said, "I was afraid it was going to get out of hand."
THE MANATEES WANT THE SAME DEAL
State officials signed a tentative deal to take over the famous Weeki Wachee Springs attraction, making all the mermaids state employees.
NO WONDER ALL HIS PATIENTS DIE
The lead executioner in a botched lethal injection told investigators that the team had to empty 14 syringes of chemicals and saline solution into both arms of convicted killer Angel Diaz in order to execute him. When asked about his medical training, the executioner said, "I have no medical training or qualifications."
TOUGH LOVE
After a 4-year-old boy in Groveland shot his 2-year-old sister with a BB gun, their dad decided to teach the boy a lesson -- by shooting him with the BB gun. Explained the dad, after being arrested: "I didn't want to whoop him."
BREATHALYZER TEST REGISTERED SPF 30
Police arrested a former Volusia County Council member on a charge of drunken driving after they found him at the scene of a two-car crash drinking suntan lotion.
DON'T IT MAKE YOUR BROWN EYES RED
Christopher Daniel Gay escaped from a prisoner transport van in South Carolina and evaded a five-state manhunt by stealing a pickup, a Wal-Mart 18-wheeler and a tour bus belonging to singer Crystal Gayle. Police said he was trying to visit his cancer-stricken mother in Tennessee. "What he done was wrong, but he knows his mama don't have long," she told a reporter. However, Gay was arrested while watching a race at Daytona International Speedway.
THE BUCKET OF MAYO WAS UNTOUCHED
A necklace worth $263,574 was stolen from a Sam's Club in Northdale.
THE MOST BEAUTIFUL FINGERPRINTS
After robbing a Sarasota bank, the robber's getaway was spoiled by an exploding dye pack that covered his hands with red ink. So he ducked into a nearby salon and asked for a manicure and a set of extensions. The stylist only had time to manicure one of his hands before he was arrested.
PRESS ONE AND WAIT FOR THE BOOM
A Pensacola Beach condo resident found a cool artifact on the beach -- but when she brought it home it turned out to be a Navy practice bomb from World War II. "I called the Navy, and they said, 'Can you call back tomorrow?'" she told a reporter. "And I said, 'I really don't think so.'"
IT'S THE LITTLE THINGS
Florida Highway Patrol troopers noticed a Cocoa man driving a pickup towing a mobile home camper with a faulty license tag light on Interstate 95. When they pulled over Charles Leon McComas, 46, they discovered the camper was a methamphetamine lab on wheels; he had marijuana plants growing in the tub; he had a baggie of meth tucked under his armpit; and, oh yeah, he was wanted for violating his probation -- for murder.
Information from Times wires was used in this report.
[Last modified December 27, 2007, 23:25:12]
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