OK . . . here is an involved--but true--story.
We had an unfortunate patient whom was badly burned in a propane accident in his trailer, and fire rescue transported him to Delray Hospital, which is a Level 1 trauma center.
The only specialty burn center that had an open bed was in Tampa, which is on the other side of the state.
They couldn't fly the patient because of technical difficulties with the helicopter, so my partner and I had to transport this patient lights and sirens across much of the state of Florida.
You can--of course--understand that our nerves were shot, so our dispatch authorized us to take our time and get something to eat before starting back.
We pulled into the first town (after taking several wrong turns) we saw, which was Gibsonton, Florida.
We pull into a conveinence store, and see that everyone in the store (customers as well as the staff) were all little people (ie: "midgets," although I usually don't use this word because it's pejorative and derogatory).
My partner and I don't say anything . . . andIwhile we're waiting in line, a tall albino man--coveredwith hundreds of tattoos--walks in, and he has all these extra fingers on his hands.
My partner and I go out of the store to sit at the picnic tables in front of the store, and I see a pedestrian walking toward the store with a vestigal, parasitic twin attached to his flank . . . and it was dressed in cheerful blue sailor suit.
While we were trying to process this, a huge, antique cadillac--with manta ray fins, gold hubcaps, and steer horns over the front grill--pulls up to the gas pumps.
The inside of the car was done up in polyester leopard skin, there was a red fur dashboard, fuzzy dice hanging from the rear view mirror, tassels outlining the windshield, a chain sterring wheel, and--leashed up in the back seat--was a live mountain lion, whuch was staring at us.
The little person whom got out to gas up his ride had his shirt open to his waist with about five pounds of gold chains, his cowboy hat was almost as big as he was, his jeans were so tight that we could tell whether or not he was circumsized just by looking at him, his ostrich-skin cowboy boots probably set him back about $600.00 or so . . . and--to top it off--his western style belt buckle was a thing of tacky magnificence. It was richly filigreed with gold, silver, platinum, diamonds, and emeralds, and was so gaudy that I knew pimps in Miami who'd be horribly embarrassed to get caught dead with such a thing.
My partner and I were gawking, and this little person looked at us and said: "What's the matter? Ain't you two never seen no Cadillac El Dorado before?"
My partner--an intensely superstitious person--grabbed my arm and dragged me to the truck, and took off lights and sirens out of Gibsonton.
I went to take a sip of my coffee, and he snatched the coffee out of my hands.
"Are you crazy?" he asked me. "You want to drink the water from that place? Don't you want to have kids someday? We just escaped from the Twilight Zone!"
In any case, we swore each other to secrecy, since we didn't expect anyone to believe us.
The story still came out a few weeks later when we were out drinking after work, and this guy sitting next to me said: "You must have been in Gibsonton."
It turns out that Gibsonton is the off-season home for all of the people whom perform in circus sideshows. They all own homes in Gibsonton, and it's the only place in the United States where the post office had to lower the front counter to accommodate all of the little people who come in for the mail.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...to-gibtown-the-last-freakshow-town-in-america