WEIRD SIGHTINGS IN TAMPA

There were reports of some weird sightings yesterday.

Elvis was seen cavorting in Las Vegas. In Republican-populated Naples, Florida, Richard Nixon was reported strolling on the 12th Street Pier. And Diogenes was seen talking to his fish dinner in a Tampa, Florida restaurant.

Diogenes?

He's the famous philosopher and biographer who lived 2,500 years ago in ancient Greece. The philosopher who spent his nights searching door to door, looking for one honest man. According to legend, his search was a failure despite years of effort.

Two and a half millennia later, Diogenes has given up on man and is now looking for one honest fish. He is focusing on Florida's favorite, the Grouper.

It's easy to find Grouper on menus in Tampa. Despite the over-fishing and highly restrictive grouper fishing laws, Grouper remains on most restaurant menus in Florida, especially those in Tampa.

Diogenes could not reconcile the logic of a sharply lower Grouper catch with the seemingly endless supply of Grouper in restaurants.

So he went restaurant to restaurant, ordering Grouper and interrogating his entree. The following conversation was overheard:

"Hello, fish. Are you a Grouper?"

"Yes, Diogenes, I am."

"Liar! I can see right away that you're a 'Yellow Banded Sweet Lips' pretending to be a Grouper!"

And at a second restaurant:

"Hello, fish. Are you a Grouper?"

"Yep, Diogenes, you bet I am."

"Liar! You are nothing but a 'Green Weakfish'!"

At a third restaurant, Diogenes caught an "Emperor Fish" masquerading as a Grouper. At a fourth, he detected "Sutchi" claiming to be a Grouper. At a fifth, he unearthed a "Bream" imitating a Grouper.

He found counterfeit Groupers which had come from as far away as Vietnam and Egypt.

But then his journey ended. At his twentieth restaurant, he found his one honest fish. A Grouper that actually was a Grouper.

Diogenes will probably not be sighted in Tampa again. He was last seen leaving his last restaurant muttering, "I should have started with fish instead of man."

The Florida Attorney General's Office investigated the arithmetric disparity between the grouper catch and grouper restaurant availability. Samples of grouper were drawn from 20 Tampa restaurants. Their DNA was tested. Seventeen were found to be fakes.

Still, three fish out of 20 were honest. That's better than man did in Diogenes' original quest.

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