Then Stewart had a good time ridiculing the folk hero known as Florida Man. He’s the guy who is always showing up in the newspaper headlines for idiotic acts such as shop-lifting a chainsaw, trying to trade an alligator for beer at a convenience store, swatting pet-store employees with a live lizard or dying shortly after a cockroach-eating contest.

Throw all of those things together and that’s what we like to call an average Tuesday afternoon in the Sunshine State.

What do expect from a place where a woman wearing a T-shirt that proclaims “Catholic Warrior” tears down the Satanic Temple’s holiday display down at the Capitol? Thank God she didn’t damage the Festivus pole or the holiday display presented by the Church of The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Florida is a hot, damp, weird and highly dangerous place.

“You choked to death on cockroaches. In any other state, that’s news,” Stewart said. “In Florida, it’s just one of the check-boxes on the coroner’s cause-of-death form.”

I have to admit, I laughed when Stewart referred to Florida as a “24-hour mugshot factory” just a few minutes before interviewing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on “The Daily Show.”

When Rubio came on the set, Stewart made a remark about the picture of Rubio that is featured on the cover of the senator’s new book.

“You look very fit,” Stewart said.

“It’s Photoshop,” Rubio joked. “And I stopped eating roaches about six months ago, so I’ve lost a lot of weight.”

Who knew Rubio was that quick-witted? He’s been hiding it well.

Still, it was Stewart’s cockroach joke that inspired a satirical meme that made the rounds on Facebook. The meme looked like an official State of Florida Coroner’s Report. It contained five check-boxes for the cause of death. The choices were:

□Choked on cockroaches

□Choked on firearm

□Snake in toilet

□Blowtorch tattoo removal

□George Zimmerman

Being a fifth-generation Florida native who has spent a lifetime observing the odd behavior in my beloved state, I was deeply offended by the Florida Coroner’s Report. Why only five causes of death? There are at least eight million ways to die in Florida. Some of the others are:

□Gang-related jellyfish attack

□Heatstroke while dressed in costume as Disney character

□Sinkhole surprise

□Swallowed by family’s pet Burmese python

□Gangrene contracted from Pitbull bite (the Miami rapper, not the dog)

□Head-on golf cart collision

□Terminal sunburn

□Suffocated by mosquito swarm

□Quicksand pit at the Goofy Golf

□Humidity fatigue

□Accidentally shot by toddler during gun sale at church

□Drowned during Hurricane T-Pain

□Abscessed thong

□Monster truck mishap

□Mangled by family’s pet shark

□Mobile meth lab explosion at Magnet School Career Day

□Excessive sweating

□Pecked to confetti by seagulls

□Impaled by stripper pole

□NASCAR fever

□Strangled by family’s pet skunk ape

□Mortally wounded by Confederate soldier at Civic War battle re-enactment

□Reckless disregard for fire ants

□Nude cave-diving

□Trampled during door-buster sale on Hot Pockets at Walmart

□Homemade tanning bed collapse

□Human sacrifice

□Afternoon rain shower in August

□Shuffleboard riot

□Pig-farm runoff

□Snake-handling church service gone awry

□God’s unexplainable and persistent grudge against Pasco County

□Tick-borne torticollis with a side order of Tourette syndrome

□The Bacardi flu

□Second place in balcony-diving competition at Spring Break in Panama City Beach

□Skewered by narwhals

□Gummed to death by cranky Canadians

□Alcohol poisoning from the annual Chumuckla Redneck Christmas Parade

□Agitating the alligators

□Dexter Morgan strikes again

□Consumed contaminated Krab Dip at a local Bilgewater seafood restaurant in Frostproof

□Severe head trauma involving frozen iguana falling from palm tree during freak ice storm

□Pirate attack

□Virulent strain of syphilis, probably contracted at The Villages

□Botched cosmetic surgery procedure at the flea market

□Chalk another one up to the avenging ghost of Anna Nicole Smith

□Cottonmouth moccasin misunderstanding

□Overdosed on Jimmy Buffett songs

□Driving while Floridian

□Stumbled into the cave opening that leads to the flames of hell, which is surprisingly close to Starke

□Crushed by family’s pet manatee

□Choked on beer bong

□Inoperable idiocy

□All of the above