Police are scouring a vast Florida preserve in search of Gabby Petito's fiance

[NBachers]

42. Having lived in Miami for 16 years, I'm well acquainted with speeding and flying palmetto bugs.

My brother and I had to clean out a Winn Dixie storage room that had been filled nearly to the ceiling with cardboard boxes packed haphazardly with old shelving. Closed off for years, this room had become a palmetto bug civilization. Every time we picked up a box, swarms of palmetto bugs would come pouring out in a panic. They'd fly into our hair and get tangled; they'd crawl down the back of our shirts. They'd crawl across the ceiling and drop down on us. Every time we took a step, they'd be crunching underfoot.

A couple years later, I was working on a construction site. The offer was made for me to get paid to stay on the site as a guard. A friend knew someone with a 27' old Airstream-type trailer. He towed it down and parked it on the site. I slept in it, unknown that it had become a palmetto bug motel because it had been sitting unused for a long time. As I tried to sleep in it, they'd crawl around on me and actually try to take bites out of my ears. They'd fly at me and land on me. Needless to say, the place got a thorough bombing and cleanout.

This, in addition to the routine palmetto bug horror atrocities that are part and parcel of living in Miami.

Sometimes, guys would get caught in pot boats down in The Keys. They'd dive overboard and swim into the mangroves, trying to elude the authorities. The cops wouldn't even try to hunt 'em down. They'd just station themselves out on the roads, and wait for the guys to run to the cops to escape the night-time mosquitoes.