I’m going to miss Florida when it’s buried under surging seawaters in just a few short years, specifically for stories like this: A woman pulled a foot-long alligator out of her yoga pants during a traffic stop.




Before we get to my many logistical questions, here are the facts: NBC reports that deputies pulled over a pickup truck, in which the woman was a passenger, around 3:15 a.m. in Punta Gorda after seeing it blow a stop sign. After stopping, the driver, a 22-year-old man, told authorities that he and the woman were coming from a nearby underpass, where they were trying to collect frogs and snakes, as people do.

The deputies issued the man a warning for the stop sign incident, then asked to see their spoils, on the off chance that their perfectly normal outing resulted in gathering some wildlife they shouldn’t have:

The driver opened the bags near him, which contained clothes and personal items. The 25-year-old female passenger then opened the backpack at her feet, revealing 42 small three-striped mud turtles and one softshell turtle. When Charlotte County deputies asked her if she had anything else on her person the deputies needed to know about, she pulled a foot-long alligator out of her yoga pants and placed it in the truck bed, according to the report.


Did...the cops ask because they saw the alligator clearly pressed against the woman’s thigh? ( I’m guessing! ?) Did they keenly sense she may have been hiding something else as she wrestled with the foot-long bulge wriggling around her legs? Yoga pants?