When I told my friend that my workplace provides us with Gatorade and Gatorade Zero, he told me that Gatorade was developed at the University of Florida, whose mascot is the Gators, hence the fortified water’s name. The drink was meant to help the university’s athletes, so “Gator aid” was created to help the Gators. Some wise guy on the research team decided to spell “aid” as “ade” – I put it that way because it’s better than supposing that people at the University of Florida can’t spell – and as if this crime against spelling wasn’t enough, when I went online to read about alligators, I discovered that according to Wikipedia, “Louisiana has the largest American alligator population of any U.S. state,” not Florida, so now I was looking at fraud because the Gators being the University of Florida’s mascot is a perpetuation of the lie that Florida is the alligator state. I don’t know about you, but I hadn’t known otherwise. I never associated Louisiana with alligators. And then I thought that if alligators have a beverage named after them, than so should crocodiles. Is there a school whose mascot is the crocodiles? If there was, their teams would beat the Gators’. I watched a documentary on Hulu called Croc That Ate Jaws about alligators and sharks occasionally cohabiting in brackish waters and the giant toothy lizards preying on the giant toothy fishes. Watching it led me to investigate caimans and crocodiles, which was where I learned that the most aggressive member of the Crocodilia Order is the Nile Crocodile, and when I say “Crocodilia Order” I’m including alligators, because they do belong to that club. Doesn’t “Crocodilia Order” sound like a secret society? Is there such a secret society – Reptilians?! Alligators and crocodiles are great big reptiles, after all. (Mental note: ask Google whether alligators or sharks have a stronger jaw, and whether it’s true that alligators and crocodiles can’t turn well, so if you’re running from them, you should zig-zag.) I have so many questions.

I was writing all of this and this is where my fluffy post about alligators and crocodiles veered in the direction of a rant, as it’s here that I Googled Nile Crocodile and encountered this article that led to me shutting my laptop, because nothing stirs my ire like stories celebrating the States’ trophy hunters going over to Africa with their privileged American firearm-toting asses looking to murder Nile crocodiles on the locals’ behalf so they can have their picture taken with the crocodile corpse before “sending it on to the purse factory” and coming home as “dragon-slaying” “heroes.”

(The article is a publication of the NRA.)

The End.

But not quite. I want to wish you all a happy next seven days in your various time zones and hemispheres, because new weeks are invigorating opportunities to do better and be better than you were the previous week. That’s how I’m look at it, anyway.

At any rate we’re on the horizon of the traditional Saturday-Sunday weekend and I hope you all have an enjoyable and/or productive one.

Until next them, my friends.