The Florida menace.

People keep wondering: Why do so many people in New York retire to Florida? They got hurricanes, they got alligators, they got weird and incompatible cultures from Miami to Orlando to the Panhandle, and most of all they got Florida Man (as detailed most Fridays by PJMedia's own VodkaPundit). Plus, it's hot and humid, so they can't even claim they have a "dry heat" as in the Southwest. So why Florida?

There are theories, of course. We have to discount the "Because New York Sucks" theory first, because while it is true, it does not explain why New Yorkers go to Florida rather than, say, Colorado or Arizona. So let's look at the plausible theories.

1) Leisure police. It's not that older people want to go to Florida; they have to. Jerry Seinfeld explained this about his parents long time ago: "They don't want to move to Florida, but they're in their sixties and that's the law. They got the leisure police. They pull up in front of the old people's house with a golf cart, jump out: 'Let's go, Pop, white belt, white pants, white shoes, get in the back. Drop the snow shovel right there, drop it!'" Maybe, but I've never seen the leisure police in action.  

2) Lower taxes. AARP (which doesn't stand for anything anymore, except maybe dog with a speech impediment) says, "Nine states — Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming — have no income taxes. Tennessee and New Hampshire, however, tax interest and dividends, although Tennessee is phasing out its tax in 2021. New Hampshire is phasing out its interest and dividends tax by 2025, according to the Tax Foundation." But why should the Sunshine State get all the AARPers in New York? Maybe because...

3) Weirdness magnet. Back in 2007, Miami humor columnist Dave Barry proposed the existence of a "weirdness magnet" that drew weirdness to South Florida. "We need to find it, dig it up, and get rid of it. I’m talking about the South Florida Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet. It’s buried around here somewhere. It has to be. How else can you explain why so many major freak-show news stories either happen, or end up, in South Florida? O.J. Simpson, for example. Why is he here? Did anybody in South Florida ever say, 'Hey O.J.! Why don’t you pack up your golf clubs, your one glove and your remaining cutlery, and come be part of our community!'? Of course not! Nobody WANTED him here. He was DRAWN here, by the Giant Underground Weirdness Magnet." It's not hard to imagine that the magnet is strong enough to pull people to Florida, but they may be able to stop anywhere along I-95 once they cross the border. Maybe the major Floridian weirdness is in the southernmost part of the state, but it's not all there. 

4) I-95. Speaking of Interstate 95, that majestic road that runs from the Maine/New Brunswick border to Miami, I can tell you that it seems to exert its own attraction over New Yorkers in a way our west-bound Interstates like I-90 and I-84 do not. There's a feeling that all of civilization worth seeing must lie on I-95 somewhere. The theory is that New Yorkers can't bear to live too far away from this modern Appian Way. Go west, young man? Nay -- go south, New Yawk man.

These are all valid reasons, but my personal favorite is:

5) They can't feel their fingers. When you're a child you can play in the snow all day and still feel all your appendages. When you get a little older, like over forty, suddenly an hour in the cold makes you wonder if your hands are covered in frostbite and will have to come off. After enough winters of this you succumb to the temptation to get in the car and keep driving south until you run out of road. Thus, ultimately, Florida.

Perhaps all these are true. New Yorkers, a little weird by nature, after being taxed like Hagar the Horrible long enough, and sick of freezing half to death, are guided by the leisure police to the I-95 corridor, and the weirdness magnet does the rest. 

I might fall for it, but my dogs won't let me. They're furry and they like the cold. They reminded me I'm too young to retire. I asked them and they both said "AARP! AARP!"