Eddie the Marshmallow-Eating Alligator

I had to stop Whats'er-name once when we were driving the Everglades from 'having a closer look at the little one'.

Yo! Chuck! This is in your back yard, go check up on them, still at it? How's Eddie doing?

And Chuck, while you're checking in on Eddie, ask around about how many fingers Mrs. English has / had remaining to her.

I moved to Florida from NYC about that time and heard about this.
I figured that Floridians were crazy.
I decided to stay and have been here since.....

Recently there was a family who had a pet alligator for 47 years, totally tame and it was taken from them. The poor thing will probably pine for its family but every gov. agency thinks they know what's best for us no matter what.

Highland Hammocks State Park in Sebring has an elevated catwalk through alligator country. One canny old fellow would approach the catwalk, jaws agape, until someone threw him a marshmallow. SNAP, jaws would close, and he would slink backwards until only his eyes showed above the water line. Somehow, brackish swamp water never seemed like a great dessert sauce to me, but this guy literally ate it up.

After working in the Everglades for 25 years and dealing with lots of alligators including capturing, relocating or direct reduction, a polite term for killing them. I'm pretty familiar with the fearsome reptilians and I still have all my limbs. They do love marshmallows but favor Kentucky Fried Chicken. In a pinch, a poodle or lab will do. Every year or so a intoxicated redneck or misguided tourist attempting to swim with the alligators gets gobbled up. Occasionally a criminal attempting to escape justice makes the mistake and tries to swim for it, resulting a extra gory news story for the ever blood thirsty press. In capturing them marshmallows are the favored bait along with the Colonels chicken. And yes they will walk right up to a picnic table and just help themselves to lunch sending the humans running for their lives and cameras. There is a report of an i-phone being consumed so instead of the tick-tick-tick now its a ringtone to announce their presence in the tall grass.

Critters that aren't born dependent and raised by their parent(s) seem to have no sense of loyalty - no ability to form emotional bonds with others. That includes snakes, lizards, turtles, and amphibians. Gators and crocs are a little more advanced as the hatchlings do get a little maternal care to protect them until they are big enough to defend themselves from the usual threat - predatory birds. That makes this story credible to me. Eddie trusted Mrs. English because he knew she would feed him regularly like clockwork.
In my opinion anybody who talks about 'pet' pythons or boas or lizards is just fooling himself. A hungry snake will eat just about anything it thinks it can wrap its mouth around.