dirty words

Warning: This blog post may make some people uncomfortable.

In other words—Mom, you should stop reading right now. I’m serious. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This post is about masturbating.

(Let that simmer for a minute)

First of all, get your mind out of the gutter!! Not the act of masturbating. The word masturbating. Though I can feel my blog getting more popular with every inappropriate Google search…

Apparently we have a problem in Southwest Florida with men pleasuring themselves in public. I wish I were kidding. In the past two weeks, we’ve covered a man in East Naples jerking off in his yard with kids nearby (meet the neighbor of the year here), a man in Lehigh Acres accused of doing the same thing (an underage victim detailed it for us), and today, I was on pervert patrol for a 19-year-old accused of rubbing one out while trying to lure young girls over to him. The kicker? He was hiding in the woods next to a high school.

This story had the potential to be really good or really lame. We needed great sound from people living in the area; people upset that their kids were walking to school near this creep while he was… doing that. I would’ve been happy with a pissed off parent, or at least a shocked neighbor. Instead, we got something way, way better.

We happened to run into the 16-year-old victim while she was walking home from school. Holy score, Batman.

She told us everything. I mean everything. In medical-term detail. This girl had no reservations about saying ‘masturbating’ on TV. So if she didn’t worry about it, I shouldn’t either. Right?

Well, I worried. Our live shot was outside of a high school, with annoying teenagers heckling me nearby. All I needed was one of them to hear me say the word and prompt a lewd demonstration behind me.

Luckily, that didn’t happen. Well, not on air, anyway. The hit wasn’t my best, but decent considering I was saying dirty words on TV.

Watch me say 'masturbating' here.