Words and Thoughts: Emperor Stav, Lord of the Alligators

Hello again, alleged readers!  It’s the cold time of year again, and that’s when ol’ Stav usually takes a vacation:  A few years ago, I tried to go to Ohio and ended up in Iceland. What a time!  Another time, around this time, I moved everything from my basement upstairs, and everything upstairs to the basement, and while I didn’t go on vacation to someplace else, the place sure did feel like someplace else!  One year I went to Turkmenistan to go see that hole they have in the ground. Yes, this is the time of the year for vacations. And this year was no different.

Obviously, there were several differences about this year, compared to other years. But the taking of vacation… not different. Year different, vacation same, but to different place, so same, kinda.

THIS year ol’ Stav packed up the ol’ yurt and went to Florida. Florida, Massachusetts. I had never been to Florida, and people are always going on about, and going to, Florida. Not one to follow a crowd, but certainly one to want to figure out what all of the figurative noise is about, I decided THIS would be the year that I finally visit Florida. I brought my potted Ficus tree into my boss’ office and said, “Water this while I’m gone or it will die, I’m going to Florida”. And then I made my way, as I mentioned, to Florida.

Recently I learned that Disney World is in Florida. I could not find it, but frankly, I didn’t want to. With the exception of their documentaries about The Jamaican Bobsled Team and The Anaheim Hockey Team, Disney is stupid, and I ain’t.

But I had heard tell that there are other things to do in Florida!  And I set out to do them. The first order of business was to find an alligator farm. From what little I understand about my family tree, several of my kin have been eaten by gators over the years. I don’t blame the gators; they were just acting on pure wild animal instinct. I’d like to think my family members were too. Such is the way of the world. As such, I’ve always tried to avoid alligators, because of the outsized threat they’ve historically posed to the Knudsensens. Yet no more would I avoid the gators!  I asked the first person I saw in Florida, “Excuse me, Florida person!  Where would I go for lookin’ at gators?”  After a spirited repartee, with much back and forth, likely due to the language barrier (I don’t speak Floridutch, which is what I assume they call what they speak in Florida), it was made clear that I needed to go to Pittsfield, the next town over. And so I did!

Florida AND Pittsfield in one vacation!  What luck.

And the luck would continue!  Before I even got into downtown Pittsfield, I saw what just had to have been a gator farm: Big green mermaid on the sign (green because gators are green, and mermaid because mermaids probably live where gators live); line out the door (because everyone obviously wants to see the gators); and at no point did I see a sign that said “This is NOT a gator farm” (because it was probably a gator farm).

I got in line and asked the person ahead of me, “This a gator farm?”.

“This is a Starbucks”, they confirmed. They speak English in Pittsfield it seems.

I had arrived at The Starbucks’ Gator Farm!

For the sake of brevity and clarity, I’ll spare you the details of the six and a half hours I spent at The Starbucks’ Gator Farm. However I will just share here with you that basically, the gator farm was out of gators for the day, and I was heading home the next day before they opened again. Dejected, and unable to look at, let alone purchase, any gators, I bought as many souvenir mugs as I could carry, and headed home. I will give them out as gifts to my co-workers. You really can’t put a price on the subtle and nuanced type of intimidation that a gift like that affords the giver of said gift. They’ll all think that to bring that many mugs back from the gator farm, I must have established myself as Emperor of the Gators while on vacation. All my co-workers established was sunburn. In the years ahead, when my co-workers take a sip of their coffee, consciously or not, they’ll be subtly reminded, true or not, that I am the Gator Emperor.

I hope my boss has taken good care of the Ficus. Lest he incur the wrath of the Gator Emperor!