Ahh Florida, that sun-drenched land of plenty! Along with gorgeous beaches, delicious fruit, and beautiful neighbors, Florida seems to attract people who do crazy, crazy things—things like impersonating a doctor as a teenager and getting away with it for a while; things like throwing a live alligator into a Wendy’s drive-in window; things like attacking a Walmart employee with potato chips. Yes, you say, whatever, you just cherry-picked crazy stuff to make Florida conveniently look crazy. Well, you’re not totally wrong, but these all happened in a three-week period last month. So many examples of the human condition’s wild side occur in Florida there’s a Twitter account called “Florida Man” documenting the absurdity, and it’s updated almost daily. With this in mind, it should come as little surprise that someone down in Palm Coast managed to turn cheese into a brawl.
On February 22, 25-year-old Jessica Conti had a hunger—a hunger only garlic knots could quell. She, like many of us, gave into her desire and went to the local pizzeria, where she specifically instructed the cashier she did not want cheese on her knots. Knot at all. The cashier thought, This is weird, everyone loves cheese, so he went ahead and helped her realize she did actually want it. When Conti discovered the unwanted, melted, gooey, delicious cheese she demanded a refund, because she really wasn’t about that dairy life. The cashier complied but, probably aggravated because he was getting paid minimum wage to not put cheese on things that obviously need cheese, he put her money on the counter in a way Conti deemed disrespectful.
Bad idea.
Conti came back with Vincent Conti (perhaps her brother?), Hareem Jones, and Shaun Cody. As you can imagine they weren’t there for the garlic knots, or even an apology. Instead, they chose to speak the language of breaking fax machines and cash registers. Then they switched dialects to the rare “throw-food-and-pizza-boxes” tongue before storming out. They didn’t cheese it quickly enough, however, and the cops caught up with them and hauled them off to jail for not properly respecting the curd. And burglary and criminal mischief. Mostly for the cheese one, though.
Feature Photo Credit: El Nariz | Shutterstock
Brook O'Meara-Sayen
Brook O’Meara-Sayen is a journalism student at Emerson College forever on the hunt for that last ten minutes of sleep. In his spare time he enjoys reading, Merle Haggard, and spending Friday evenings trying to break his personal record for most cheddar eaten in one sitting.
