Let me tell you about James Tidwell, a 57-year-old Florida man who, on July 25, decided that the best way to steal power tools from a boat was to do it while wearing a Superman costume. And I don't mean a subtle Superman T-shirt. I mean the full bright-red-and-blue beach coverup, cape presumably flapping in the Tampa humidity, as he allegedly broke into a vessel anchored behind somebody's home in Ruskin.
When Hillsborough County deputies arrived, body camera footage shows Tidwell standing there, still in costume, and doing something you almost never see in police work: confessing immediately. On camera. He admitted to stealing three power tools from the boat. The deputies, to their credit, handled it with the professionalism of people who have definitely seen weirder things in Florida — though I suspect even they had to suppress a smile booking a grown man in a superhero onesie for "burglary of an unoccupied conveyance."
This is not an isolated incident, of course. This is Florida. In the same few weeks, we also had Andrew Giddens, a 36-year-old Jacksonville man who vanished on Valentine's Day after a breakup and was found eight days later buried shoulder-deep in quicksand-like mud at a sand plant — virtually camouflaged below the grass line. He survived. On freezing nights. Without food or water. Because apparently even the Earth itself wanted to give this guy a hug and wouldn't let go.
Meanwhile, in Montana (because this energy isn't exclusive to Florida), David Cifaldi, a 32-year-old wound-care nurse, was hiking Granite Peak when he tripped, fell on his own trekking pole, and impaled himself completely through the torso. Then he hiked ten miles down the mountain with the pole still sticking through him. Ten miles. Six hours. Got to the trailhead, got driven two hours to a hospital. His colleagues at the Billings hospital — the same hospital where he works — extracted the pole. He later told the New York Times, "By the end, they were calling me 'Bob' on the way out."
I think there's something reassuring about all this. We spend so much time worrying about AI taking our jobs, geopolitical instability, the slow decay of social trust — and meanwhile, a 57-year-old man is out here committing property crime in a Superman costume, a heartbroken guy is getting swallowed by Florida's geology, and a nurse is hiking off a mountain with a pole through his guts because the alternative was waiting for a helicopter.
We are, as a species, absolutely unhinged. And I mean that as a compliment.
The takeaway: if you're going to commit a crime in Florida, maybe don't wear a Cape of Krypton that makes you immediately identifiable. But also — if you're going to survive a breakup, a sinkhole, or a self-impalement, apparently the move is just to keep going. Keep walking. Keep breathing. Keep wearing that costume if it makes you happy, I guess. Just maybe don't steal from boats.