"That'll Teach You!!"

This is one sign you won't find in Florida. Yes, we have untold dozens of evacuation signs that direct vehicular traffic away from low lying coastal areas when an approaching hurricane is by best estimates predicted to strike land fall. However, packing up the family to head inland is no guarantee that Mother Nature's pent up fury will not follow you up the interstate like a well trained hunting dog. This was proved in the summer of 2005 when Florida was deluged with a series of weekend after following weekend hurricanes that came a shore on our lower west coast and didn't have the courtesy to linger there, but destructively crossed the interior of the state with a vengeance. Coastal residents who thought they had safely removed themselves from harm's way found to their startled dismay once again squarely in the cross hairs of the storm. At its widest point the Florida peninsula is a mere 160 miles across. That leaves virtually no locations that aren't in reach of the fiercest hurricane's wind bands. Moral? To quote the poet Robert Burns, "Sometimes the best laid schemes of mice and men often go awry."

Which brings me to my original destination for this dissertation. Seems there is a man in Chicago who had labored for well over an hour to remove the snow from a parking space in front of his apartment building. It was his intention to bring his automobile that he had been forced to park several blocks away at the height of the previous snow storm to this newly cleared space. Upon returning he found that a woman was exiting her car that now was parked in the space. He jumped out of the car and demanded of her that she vacate the parking spot immediately. She refused. ("Finders keepers" applies here). Ever the diplomat the man retrieved a revolver from his glove compartment and shot her. Moral? I would suggest that Mr. Burn's adage applies in this incident as well. Better yet...move to Florida. When you have to evacuate due to an approaching hurricane you can rest assured that your car will never get stuck in the snow.