Florida Man challenge: The most ridiculous stories of 2020
Florida Man is doing his best to keep cheering us up in 2020. For some reason, Florida is never in short supply of outstandingly absurd news stories. Maybe Floridians just enjoy spreading joy to the internet and will even go as far as getting arrested in order to do it.
Joke’s on us, world. Floridians are actually just amiable citizens taking a hit to their reputation in order to let people guffaw at their outrageous shenanigans. What? Not buying it? It could happen.
In any case, like we said, 2020 was no exception to the rule of having a rich harvest of Florida Man headlines. Here at Film Daily, we love making people laugh, so we’ve done the hard work of rounding up some of the most ridiculous Florida Man headlines for you. You’re welcome, and enjoy.
Get out of work card
You ever think to yourself, “Man, I really don’t want to go to work today. I think I’ll use a bomb threat to get out of it”? Yeah, us neither—but this man did. He thought that faking a bomb threat was the perfect get-out-of-work-card. Too bad he was right in more ways than one. The next question he’ll have to answer is whether or not he’ll be able to get-out-of-jail-card.
36-year-old Richard Hamilton was arrested for calling in a bomb threat to the water treatment facility he worked at. His motive was getting out of work, but his plan obviously didn’t pan out too well. Authorities found out Hamilton was the one who made the call and had a bomb search dog and a bomb squad search his car. Even drones were involved.
The last thing we heard is that Hamilton was being held on a $10,000 bond. The question remaining is, did the 20 coworkers who had to evacuate the facility appreciate the few hours off Hamilton bought them?
Kicking chickens
Okay, animal abuse is decidedly not funny, but the way the event was described sort of was. According to the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, this man kicked the chicken like “a football player would kick a field goal.” It paints a pretty vivid image, like the kind of thing you would see some goofy teenage boy execute in his video game.
The poor assaulted chicken suffered four broken ribs from the attack. Apparently, 43-year-old Nicholas Kevin Chew got upset with the chicken for the noises it was making. He and his girlfriend were in the middle of an argument while the chicken was going about its business. Chew’s girlfriend had become concerned about the chicken’s well-being when she called the police.
Yes, the chicken has since been reunited with its family and the owner chose to press charges.
9-1-1 delivery service
9-1-1 will deliver you to jail, that is. Especially if you’re using it like some kind of delivery service. 65-year-old Michael James Gables is yet another bozo who had the bright idea to misuse the time of emergency responders for silly things. Gables called 9-1-1 reporting he had an emergency. When police arrived he told them to take a twenty-dollar bill that was lying on his couch and return with some liquor.
Can you imagine asking law enforcement to do something like that? “Be a dear and grab me some booze, officer.” As one would expect, it didn’t go over well. The police reprimanded him and Gables told them he understood that he would receive more than a reprimand if he ever did that again.
The next day, Gable called the police over once again. The problem this time? He was too lazy to get out of his recliner and wanted deputies to fetch him some ice cream from his freezer. They were not amused. Gable was charged with misuse of 9-1-1. Maybe his foolishness would have gone over better if he had offered them some. Alcohol float, anyone?
You’ve been served
Those are a few words you don’t really want to hear in your lifetime if you can avoid it. This Florida man wanted so much not to be served papers that he went to extreme lengths to try to prevent it. Spoiler alert. He was served anyway.
William Nash shot a flare gun at a man and woman who were trying to serve the legal papers. When police arrived, Nash admitted to them that he had fried the flare gun more than once because he had been drinking. Thankfully, Nashed missed his targets.
How Rude!
Strangely enough, it was the perpetrator of a crime who was thinking this thought. Evidently, one man held the door of a liquor store open for another man and thought it was gentlemanly enough to deserve some gratitude. The “gentleman” then asked the man he’d held the door open for, “You don’t say ‘thank you’ to people who hold the door open for you?”
The other man then allegedly said thank you, but this didn’t satisfy the gentleman. He started shadowing him and wanting to continue the discussion about the man’s rudeness. At a certain point, the gentleman seethed, “I’ll kick your [butt] if you say another word.” You want to know what the other man allegedly replied? “Another word.”
Yep, that’s right. So just like two siblings going at it, a fight began. The gentleman attacked the other man and the police were called. Apparently, this man is still at large. The next time you’re contemplating acting like a Karen and neglecting to say thank you to someone, think of this gentleman.
