Connie Gittles, a 74-year-old retiree who lives by a lake...near Fort Myers [Florida], said she was bitten by an alligator last week while watering plants in her backyard. Ms. Gittles said she had felt a bite above her ankle and looked down to see an alligator "looking right at me….I gave him one good whack on the nose with the nozzle of the hose," she said, and the alligator disappeared. Ms. Gittles's wounds were not severe. —The New York Times, 5-16-06