A salad to die for?

Mozzarella caprese -- fresh cheese and tomatoes drizzled with olive oil and basil -- apparently is a popular item at Pizza Time restaurant in Boca Raton.  So popular, in fact, that the chef threated a waitress with violence if she brought him one more order for the salad.

Police said chef and manager Mark DeCraepeo told the waitress that if she brought him yet another ticket for mozzarella caprese, "I swear to God I'll shoot you in the forehead."  He then slammed a handgun in a holster down on the countertop.  "Now you see I'm (expletive) serious, I'll put a bullet right in your forehead," DeCraepeo hollered, according to police.

The waitress worked the rest of her shift but called police that evening to report the incident.  Chef DeCraepeo allegedly told police he did have a gun but that he did not point it at anyone.  He was arrested for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon with intent to commit a felony and carted off to jail.

This happy couple has one big thing in common

She's 20. He's 24. She's an education student in Florida. He's a financial adviser in Texas.

They have one big thing in common, though.

They're both named Kelly Hildebrandt.

And they're getting married.

They met after she searched for her own name on Facebook, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel reports. They spent three months talking non stop and were soon dating.

"There wasn't anything we didn't talk about we just felt really comfortable," said Kelly Hildebrandt of Coral Springs.

"If we introduce each other, people have to think about it for a second," Kelly Katrina Hildebrandt said. "They say, wait, you guys have the same name?"

There's ALWAYS a Florida connection...

You know this.  So you should not be suprised that the Palm Beach Post is reporting, "Cheating South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford expected to spend the Fourth in Hobe Sound."

The governor's spokesman said he would be joining his wife and four sons at his inlaws' home in Hobe Sound's gated Loblolly Bay community.  The spokesman added that the family would be taking a longer vacation later in the month of July, and requested that "members of the media" respect their privacy this weekend.

Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall in that house?

Fox News has additional details.

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Photo:  AP

Maybe it was the hot new fashions

PalmBeachPost.com is reporting that a West Palm Wal-Mart Super Center was evacuated Sunday night after a clothing rack caught fire.  No harm, no foul, however.  The minor conflagration was extinguished by store employees before the professional firefighters showed up, and there were no injuries reported.  An investigation is underway to determine the cause of said conflagration.

With her kids in the car, Palm Beach Co. woman rams boyfriend's truck to stop his drunk driving

A Palm Beach Post report via the Associated Press states that a Royal Palm Beach woman told police she crashed her car into her boyfriend's truck to prevent him from driving drunk.

The sheriff's office reports that 33-year-old Lorena Alvarez was charged Thursday for the April 13 crash. That night, authorities say Alvarez put her two children, ages 7 and 1, into her car and went looking for her boyfriend. She eventually found him sitting in his truck in a Winn-Dixie parking lot. That's when authorities say Alvarez pulled up to the truck and rammed it, her children still in the car with her.

Alvarez was charged with aggravated battery and two counts of child abuse. She was being held without bail.

Man gets probation for parking lot menage a trois with blow-up dolls

A Cape Coral man has pleaded no contest to charges of making whoopee with a couple of blow-up dolls while parked outside a Publix grocery store, the Palm Beach Post reports. George Bartusek, 51, told police he went to the shopping center so he could shop at Target for clothes for his dolls.

A crowd had gathered around his car when the arresting officer arrived. Witnesses said Bartusek was "performing activity to two different blow up dolls in his vehicle that was consistent with masturbation and other simulated sexual activity." He was sentenced to six months' probation.

Here's a video report on the case:

At least 21 horses die, scores more collapse in surreal scene before Wellington polo match

Authorities are scrambling to find why 21 or more polo ponies belonging to a Venezuelan team died before a match in Wellington on Sunday. While veterinarians await necropsy reports, one news source has already begun speculating that the horse could have been drugged, the South Florida Sun Sentinel reports.

The exact number of deaths is unclear. The Palm Beach Post reports that 14 horses died Sunday and  seven more appear to have died overnight.

Veterinarians tried feverishly to save the expensive polo ponies while a stunned, hushed crowd at the International Polo Club Palm Beach looked on, the Sun Sentinel reports. Vets hooked up intravenous tubes to the horses and fought to help them breathe. Fans sprayed water mist to cool their bodies.

"They started getting dizzy," polo club spokesman Tim O'Connor said. "They dropped down right onto the grass."

The horses were part of the Venezuelan-based Lechuza Caracas team and had been kept at the team's complex near the polo stadium in Wellington. Each polo team typically brings about 24 horses to a match.

The U.S. Open, in its 105th year, is the oldest and most prestigious polo tournament in the United States. It culminates the end of the high-goal season at International Polo Club Palm Beach.

One or two horses met a similar fate in Ocala within the past two years, said Dean Turney, executive director of the Wellington Equestrian Alliance, the Post reports. In that case, Turney said, the sickness was linked to contaminated feed.

"They were able to identify the source very quickly, within 24 hours," Turney told the Post. "Another day or two after that, they got the lab results and they confirmed what the problem was."

Stab a man, smoke a cigarette, get arrested

What do you do after stabbing someone? Relax, smoke a cigarette?

That's what a homeless man did in West Palm Beach Monday night, police said, according to the Palm Beach Post

The man was sitting at a table in Centennial Square in downtown West Palm Beach when he started arguing with another homeless man. He got up, stabbed the man in the chest, and then sat back down, according to police.

The victim survived and identified his attacker, who was sitting at a table smoking a cigarette. The unidentified man was arrested.

Another man was arrested on charges of helping to dispose of the knife.

People sitting at other tables in the park said they did not even know the stabbing happened.

A media frenzy as judge ends custody fight over $2,000 parrot

Tequila, the African Grey parrot ordered to appear in court as part of a custody battle, is going back to his original owner, the Palm Beach Post reports.

Palm Beach County Judge James Martz ordered the $2,000 bird returned to Angela Colicheski, 52, of Boca Raton., who sued the woman who found parrot three years ago.

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"It's like a birthday," a tearful Colicheski said after the hearing,. "It's my birthday. I couldn't wait to say his name."

Tequila didn't have to go through the metal detector like everyone else in court.He made a quick chirp as he came in, but remained silent for the hearing.

The judge said Florida law treats animals as property, and dismissed suggestions that its finder, Sarita Lytell, 47, should get to keep him in exchange for caring for him.

"They treat a living, breathing animal like a car," Lytell said. "Is that fair? Is that justice?"

Colicheski walked out of the courthouse with Tequila in a small crate. Television reporters ran after her, including a crew from Inside Edition. Two television camera operators got into a brief shoving match trying to capture Tequila's reunion.

Can you identify these creeps?

The Boyton Beach Police Department is asking for the public's assistance in identifying these three young men who used a stolen credit card to purchase hundreds of dollars in gift cards at a CVS store Tuesday.

How did they obtain the stolen credit card?  Police said they approached a 79-year old woman in a Walmart earlier that day and distracted her by asking her how to make relish.  As she was pointing out the appropriate ingredients on the shelves to one of the men, another stole her purse, which contained several credit cards, the woman's driver license and her credit card.  More details, plus photos, are available in this BBPD press release (PDF).  The police have placed this CVS suveillance video on YouTube.