The Alligator and the Infant: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

This is what passes for humor in my family. My oldest brother --who is not in the entertainment industry, despite having attended a famous clown college (he hates it when I refer that way to Stanford)-- has just become a grandfather. We've all been waiting for a picture of young  Henley, and this is what we get.

Henley's parents are my niece and her husband. Obviously, they're adjusting well to parenthood; this picture was taken by her sister, who was acting as babysitter. I can't blame the sister (my other niece) for being warped, because growing up, her father -- my brother, remember? -- came home one day with some kind of alligator relative, called a cayman. Not the Porsche kind, either. It lived in our laundry-area sink, until it escaped into the neighborhood, before finding a final resting place toward the bottom of some neighbor's pool. We were the pride of the street, I tell you what.

Anyway, flash-forward some years, and here's the lead photograph of the new family album. And I know you're way too smart to need me to spell-out all the usual qualifiers that the alligator is plastic; the kid's yawning,  not crying; you shouldn't do this with a real alligator or child;  and Stanford isn't really a clown college.  Well....

BTW, for the coolest-ever escape from alligators, I refer you to Roger Moore's first James Bond film back in 1973, when they were good, in which he used several gators' backs to jump to safety in Live and Let Die.