Welcome to Fun Facts About the 50 States, where – week by week – I’ll be taking you on a tour around this great nation of ours, providing you with interesting, yet completely useless and probably untrue, information about each of the 50 states.

This week, we’ll be thinking to ourselves that there’s GOT to be a better way to earn tuition money just before passing out from heat stroke while wearing an unventilated Disney character costume as we visit sunny Florida, so let’s get started…

• Florida became the 27th state on March 3rd, 1845, an event which most of the state’s residents recall fondly from their childhoods.
• Or WOULD, if it weren’t for the Alzheimer’s.
• The knee is Florida’s official state arthritic joint.
• The largest private employer in Florida is Disney World. The second largest is the company that makes “this ride closed for repairs” signs.
• After the Presidential election disaster in 2000, Florida passed a law making it illegal to vote without first removing your souvenir Mickey Mouse gloves.
• The most common cause of death in Florida is being run over by old women who mistakenly voted for Pat Buchanan.
• The second most common is getting run over by ’57 Chevys that wash up on Miami Beach from Cuba.
• The state bird of Florida is the Pink Flamingo, a feisty animal which is actually capable of killing a fully grown alligator, thanks to Florida’s concealed carry law.
• Although most Floridians don’t speak with a strong southern accent, they DO tend to pronounce the word “hurricane” as “Oh, SH**!”
• Janet Reno was born in Miami, Florida, and only returned to the state because her magic mirror told her that Elian Gonzales was fairer than she.
• Twice yearly, Florida is victimized by uncontrollable destructive forces which lay waste to the state. These times are known as “hurricane season” and “spring break.”
• The state reptile of Florida is the alligator, which subsists on a diet of fish, birds, and Japanese tourists.
• The state song of Florida is “Grandpa, Don’t Wear That Speedo to the Beach.”
• If a hurricane strikes while you’re in Florida, just hand over your wallet and no one will get hurt.
• Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon discovered Florida in 1513 while searching for the legendary Fountain of Orange Juice.
• Despite the fact that the temperature never gets below freezing, Florida has a professional ice hockey team, which… nah, no one’s gonna believe that one.
• People from Florida are easy to spot on the road. They’re the ones driving around with sheets of plywood nailed over their car windows.
• If you move to Florida, buy a house with a colorful roof so that you can easily find it after it gets blown down the street by a hurricane.
• When visiting Sea World in Orlando, be sure to stop by the restaurant for the “slow learner sandwich” special.
• Native Floridians never wear sunglasses because they have a special, inner third eyelid to keep out the sun’s harmful rays.
• Florida’s Disney World is technically in a state of war with California’s Disneyland, and the two theme parks exchange nuclear strikes several times a year.
• The University of Florida’s football team is named the Gators in honor of the millions of alligators milked each year to make Gatorade.
• Neil Smith of Montverde, Florida, invented the riding lawn mower in 1933, adding to the list of useful things that Floridians watch get blown down the street by a hurricane.
• The state tree of Florida is the Palm Tree – so named because that’s the part of your body that will be scraped raw if you try to climb it.
• While in Florida, NEVER try to climb any sort of nut tree.
• The Everglades in Florida is 2100 square miles of smelly, oozing, mosquito-infested muck. Most Florida natives still refer to it by its original name the “The Cesspool National Park.”
• Passing the test for a driver’s license in Florida requires that you be able to make a right turn from the left lane across 3 lanes of traffic. Or so I assume from what I saw last time I was there.
• Despite rumors to the contrary, “Florida oysters” is NOT a euphemism for boiled alligator testicles.
• However, eating Florida oysters WILL cause you to grow a special, inner third eyelid.
• The state flower of Florida is the Orange Blossom, which is a small, white flower with an insatiable hunger for human flesh.
• The refrigerator was invented in Florida in 1921. This represented a great technological leap forward, as now Floridians had a place to store their melted ice cream when the power went out.

That wraps up the Florida edition of Fun Facts About the 50 States. Next week we’ll be sneaking north across the border into America’s peachiest state, Georgia.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go milk me some fresh Gatorade.

[The complete e-book version of “Fun Facts About the 50 States” is now available at Amazon.com. If you don’t have a Kindle, you can download free Kindle apps for your web browser, smartphone, computer, or tablet from Amazon.com]