When Baby Alligators Roamed the Isles of K-Mart
Photo credit: Pandiyan
When I was ten-years-old it was possible to wander into K-Mart, do a little shopping, and then walk out the front door carrying a brown paper sack containing a live alligator.
I’m not referring to an alligator-style lizard, or some kind of toy; but an actual, living, breathing baby alligator that would eventually grow to roughly the same dimensions as a small nuclear submarine and be capable of swallowing live chickens the size of basketballs.
Now days, K-Mart doesn’t even sell live pets, but back then they had a pretty exotic pet department: African frogs, hairy tarantulas, boa constrictors—even scorpions!—and they must’ve had at least fifty gator hatchlings climbing all over each other. To this day I remember what a bargain they were: only $1.50 each! The only thing that kept me from buying one right then and there was the sign on the aquarium that read “Must be 18 to purchase.”
I recall running home and suggesting to my mom that we hurry back and buy one before they were all gone, but, for some reason, she didn’t share my enthusiasm and refused. I was crushed. There went my dreams of feeding it until it was big enough for me to ride to school where I’d have it rip the arms off of bullies like Carl Klugman who, on one occasion, stuck two extremely sexually-active hamsters down my pants.
Although I never got to have a pet gator, plenty of other kids did. After I grew up and gained enough sanity to realize an alligator may not be the greatest pet choice, I often wondered what people did when their gator, which can grow up to 18-feet long, became a real problem. For instance, let’s say it’s Thanksgiving and the turkey is coming out of the oven—it smells terrific!—but then your pet alligator, Uncle Albert, attracted by the scent, waddles into the kitchen and roars. What would you do?
My guess is that Uncle Albert is going to have a very nice meal while you, and all your relatives, are forced to sit around the dining table and listen to your rumbling stomachs.
I should be thankful that my mom wouldn’t let me get one; I’d probably still have it—and, I just learned that alligators can live up to 70 years in captivity!
Here are some interesting facts about alligators:
- Adults can survive more than two years without eating.
- An average alligator lives to about 40-years-old, but one held in captivity lived to be over 100.
- They can stay submerged under water for up to 2 hours (in very cold water they can stay under for as much as 8 hours!)
- An alligator can only exert itself for 30 minutes before it becomes completely exhausted and will need several hours to recover.
- Their eggs respond to temperature. If they are kept at a temperature in the low 80’s (degrees) they will all develop into females; if the eggs are kept in the low 90’s, they will all develop into males; in-between temperatures produce a mixture of males and females.
Some people, such as those living in Florida and Louisiana, choose to live right in the thick of Gator Country where alligators have been known to wander the streets and periodically visit grocery stores. During my recent trip to Orlando, I was watching for gators, but the only one I saw was the animatronics version I saw on Disney’s Jungle Cruse ride. He appeared menacing and snapped his jaw.
Comments
Comment from Daisy the Curly Cat
Time: September 16, 2008, 2:22 am
Guess what? Alligators live in the lake outside my house! We live less than a mile from the Florida Everglades. I am Not Allowed to go near the edge of the lake, even when I wear my harness and leash.
Comment from ettarose
Time: September 16, 2008, 2:59 am
Now everyone knows what to get you for your birthday. A cat
William McCamment reply on September 16th, 2008 7:58 am:
Ha! Very funny! Like I need another cat to torture me every morning! 
Comment from John Sullivan
Time: September 16, 2008, 7:42 am
I’m sitting here wondering what is more fascinating the legendary modern day dinosaur or your writing.You should be really writing for magazines on the level of Playboy and Rolling Stone,I mean serious that was f8cking Brilliant and Extraordinary.
Excellent Thanks
William McCamment reply on September 16th, 2008 8:33 am:
Wow! I don’t even know how to respond to such a nice complement except to say, thanks!
Like most writers, I hate all of my own writing.
Comment from thinkinfyou
Time: September 16, 2008, 8:44 am
Growing up in FL.(and still living here for that matter)I can remember boys I went to school with would catch small alligators all the time. They loved to put a leash around it neck and walk it down Daytona Beach during Spring Break. The look on the Northerners was priceless.
William McCamment reply on September 17th, 2008 3:55 am:
I would love to take an alligator for a walk! That would be great!
Comment from Lord Likely
Time: September 16, 2008, 3:34 pm
When people went into the Wal-Mart to purchase said alligator, did the line ‘I would like to buy an alligator, please. And make it snappy!’ ever utter from their lips?
I hope so.
William McCamment reply on September 17th, 2008 4:01 am:
“Your finest alligator, sir, and make it an irritable one!”
Comment from Jenn
Time: September 17, 2008, 9:22 am
I remember those alligators at K-Mart. I forgot entirely that both KMart and places like Woolworths/McCrory’s had HUGE pet sections. I wonder what happened to those gators, too. Flushed and living in our sewers? I wouldn’t be surprised.
Down in the Florida Keys at my Dad’s, folks have let their pet iguanas roam free when they no longer want them. So on warm days, Godzilla will pop out of the canal by Dad’s house, climb on shore and sun himself.
It’s pretty…. surprising.
William McCamment reply on September 18th, 2008 7:07 am:
I just realized that Godzilla (of the movies) looks like a cross between an iguana and an alligator. Maybe people let their pets go and, you know…things happened down in the sewers.
Jenn reply on September 18th, 2008 9:23 am:
That does put a somewhat different spin on it. An alliguana… an igodile…
Comment from The Dunce
Time: September 17, 2008, 8:56 pm
Similar to alligators….Sarah Palin can survive more than two years without eating. Sarah Palin can stay submerged under water for up to 2 hours (in very cold water she can stay under for as much as 8 hours!). Sarah Palin can only exert herself for 30 minutes before she becomes completely exhausted and will need several hours to recover. Sorry, I just couldn’t resist.
William McCamment reply on September 18th, 2008 7:12 am:
See what happens when you go without sun for several months?
Comment from Dr. Nicole Sundene
Time: September 18, 2008, 1:54 am
Wow we really have made a lot of progress not selling baby alligators at K-mart anymore! Whew…I am going to take a few days off now that I just realized that. Love your blog! Thanks for the laughs, sorry if I don’t always have time to drop a comment. 
William McCamment reply on September 18th, 2008 7:12 am:
Are you saying that my blog made you call in sick? LOL
Just kidding! Thanks for the kind words.
Comment from Janet
Time: September 18, 2008, 11:33 am
That brought back memories! We bought & owned those little aligators and turtles too. Never had them for long, they always seemed to have gotten lost…
William McCamment reply on September 18th, 2008 4:54 pm:
Maybe you better not open the cabinet door beneath the sink; there might be a lost, hungry gator in there.
Comment from timethief
Time: September 18, 2008, 4:05 pm
I remember my grandma taking us to pet stores when we were very small and there we would stare at the baby gators and turtles behind the glass. We weren’t allowed to buy them as we didn’t have the right conditions to keep them in and we thought that being denied the opportunity to take them home was mean. In time I grew up and recognized how wise my grandma was when my neighbor found a foot long gator had come up from the sewer into her toilet bowl. Luckily she saw it before she lowered her butt to do her business. 
William McCamment reply on September 18th, 2008 4:56 pm:
There is nothing, and I mean NOTHING as frightening as opening the lid to the toilet and…hello! Gator!
Comment from Bill Libbey
Time: September 18, 2008, 4:08 pm
I agree with John Sullivan :>) I’ve heard stories of alligators being dumped when they get too big, into places they shouldn’t be (Lake Ontario for example), or flushed down toilets. Don’t know if they’re true, but I always check the toilet bowl before use now.
William McCamment reply on September 19th, 2008 4:19 am:
I don’t know about lake Ontario, but lake Michigan has an unusual number of ships that have vanished; maybe there’s some kind of Supergator out there gobbling them up!
Comment from petra
Time: September 18, 2008, 8:04 pm
OMG I can’t believe I forgot about this! I remember I reallyyyyyy wanted a tarantula. Never got one but my gawd they were cool! I would have settled for a garden snake (that was the only kind I ever saw in a store). Never got one of those either. Never saw baby gators in any of our Kmarts tho.
William McCamment reply on September 19th, 2008 4:23 am:
We have tarantulas roaming around here in the hills. We have the big ugly hairy ones and the cute fuzzy ones. I like the fuzzy one-handers better, but they don’t get quite as big.
Comment from Joshua
Time: September 18, 2008, 11:58 pm
I’ve never actually been within 10 feet of a live alligator, but I have a strange desire to learn to wrestle them. Like those guys on animal planet, rescuing the redneck families from alligators disrupting their bbq’s. The dad trying to swat it with a spatula, the mom screaming, trying to hold back all 11 children. Little boys screaming, “I’m'a cut yeeewww, dumb gater.”
Yes, that would be the life.
William McCamment reply on September 19th, 2008 4:25 am:
You might even be able to start a business: Alligator Rescue!
Comment from Bakerious
Time: September 21, 2008, 1:39 am
I remember the Kmart gator tanks as a kid. My once told me that when he was growing up, you could order alligator eggs out of comic books. I assume you were meant to hatch them for baby gators and not scramble them for breakfast though.
William McCamment reply on September 21st, 2008 3:36 am:
I heard they go good with iguana bacon.
Comment from lyle w blodgett
Time: September 22, 2008, 9:03 pm
Hi Bill, I finally got up and running. Very good!
William McCamment reply on September 22nd, 2008 9:12 pm:
Hi Lyle! Thanks for visiting!
Comment from JD at I Do Things
Time: September 23, 2008, 8:12 am
I love the image of a kid riding to school on an alligator — as the mean bully kids run in terror. I could’ve used an alligator in my youth.
It’s no wonder the “baby-alligator-flushed-down-the-toilet” myth evolved, if stores like K-Mart were actually selling them!
William McCamment reply on September 25th, 2008 4:44 am:
I can’t imagine anyone being dumb enough to flush a live alligator down the toilet, but I’ve seen people do some pretty stupid things, so, yeah, it probably happened.
Comment from AngieSS
Time: September 23, 2008, 9:08 am
Totally true! My Dad bought an alligator and we kept it in a fairly large glass aquarium in the living room. We thought it was sooo cool. Then one day it bit my Dad whilst he was trying to feed it — It had grown to about 1 1/2 ft long.
I have no idea what happened to it. One moment we were alligator lovers, next — we weren’t. I suppose he probably just took it out and let it go at the lake. It was full of alligators anyway. Hmmm…I’ll have to remember to ask him.
William McCamment reply on September 25th, 2008 4:48 am:
Hopefully, you won’t find a full-grown live alligator in your basement.
Comment from Uni
Time: September 23, 2008, 11:10 am
The Isles of K-Mart……..hmmmmm……aren’t they in the Martha Stewart Sea?
William McCamment reply on September 25th, 2008 4:49 am:
…or, maybe Martha Stewart was once a baby alligator!
William McCamment reply on September 16th, 2008 7:55 am:
You are one smart kitty! I read that alligators can push themselves 5-feet up out of the water and grab animals out of low-hanging branches. So, be careful!
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