I post this evening from drizzly Florida, where every 3rd house has a tarp on the roof to cover hurricane damage, street signs are still bent like paper clips, and the top story on the evening news is rampant obesity among America's pets.

There's nothing like south Florida to remind you that, while Washington University is beset by a laptop and automobile crime wave that has been lasting for years but only now getting press, there are indeed towns where absolutely nothing ever happens. I see CSI: Miami, with drug dealers shooting it out with rappers in big mansions and trendy clubs, but this is how a real episode of CSI: South Florida would play out based on the local news:

"Speed": "H, we've got an elderly woman here crying hysterically! Get over here right away!"

(H drives up not in an absurd expensive Hummer, but in an old Cadillac that takes up both lanes of the road)

H: "This had better be important, I was cleaning my sunglasses."
Speed: "She says someone scammed her on the phone pretending to sell her cheaper long distance service."
H: "There must be a bigger crime than this somewhere, what have you got Delko?"
Delko: "Not much H, a man and a woman married their cats to each other on a boat, and obesity may be a threat to our pets' health."
H: "What about the rest of you?"
Blonde gun woman: "I've got a legal struggle going on at the courthouse, a man slipped on an acorn and is suing his neighbor for negligence. And my southern accent is totally unrealistic and out of place down here."
Medical Examiner: "You poor baby, who did this to you?"
H: "It sounds like you've got a corpse there in autopsy? What was the cause of death?"
Medical Examiner: "Well I can't say for sure, but it looks like this dog was eaten by an alligator that was hiding underneath his owner's doublewide."

Voiceover: "In next week's episode, the CSI team investigates a clear case of rising prescription prices. Will it cause your insurance premiums to go up?"

Posted by: rkc at November 26, 2004 10:33 AM