Rabbit season, duck season, hurricane season...

Once again, it's that time of year that Floridians love to hate: hurricane season. Why do we love to hate it? Let me count the ways...

Unreasonable (and unwarranted) panic exacerbated by the media is first and foremost. All the non-native floridians running around like headless chickens, gathering up water and sitting in gas-lines for hours and hours on end, for what? A tropical storm? Let's wait until a real storm comes through to start the looting. Seems like people are just itching for a reason to get crazy and yell at each other. That's not to say that native Floridians aren't panicking, but I'd speculate that larger chunk of people stopping up traffic, embroiled in a screaming match with some guy who 'cut them off in the gas line', are probably not from around here.

Speaking of gas-lines, it's an understandable notion that you'd want to fill up your tank before the storm, because we all know that after a storm there are terrible gas-shortages. Simply put, that's just not the case. After the last set of hurricanes, we got gasoline well before we even got power. Trust me, gas stations are in the business of selling you what you need. Ahhh, paranoia.

Stocking up on water is a good plan, but the blind raging panic of people in the stores is really almost scary. Animalistic. These are the same people that, during a real catastrophe, cause riots, violence, pain.

I'm not saying people shouldn't prepare. Quite the contrary, people should definitely be prepared. And by now, by the start of the 2006 hurricane season, should already *be* prepared. These crazies, these dangerous people who resort to violence and give in to rages during times of non-crisis, these are the people that should really reconsider living in hurricane alley. Maybe they should live somewhere less prone to natural disasters like hurricanes. Or tornadoes. Or earthquakes. Or anything at all. Hey, it's not like hurricanes just come up from out of nowhere. They're not ninja hurricanes just popping out of your closet to give you a scare!

Crazy people. Really. I categorize them in the same place as I put those idiots that haven't figured out that slower traffic should move to the right lane.