Laughing Matters: The Miami Travel Edition

By Ryan G. Van Cleave

I’m sure you’ve noticed something is a wee bit different about my humor column this month. Yep—you guessed it. I’m writing it on a Mac laptop versus my normal desktop PC. The real differences between these machines as I understand them? Four things.

• My PC doesn’t have that strange little squiggle button on it, just to the left of the space bar. What the heck is that thing on my Mac? It boasts “COMMAND,” so I’m understandably terrified. What commands are we talking about? Is it an eject button? Self-destruct? Direct hotline to Apple HQ? (I just steer clear.)
• My Mac is silver. The PC, in contrast, is a muddled grayish yuk-colored thing that perhaps once aspired to look silvery.
• When I run out of things to write for this column and, in a fit of writer’s block, smash the nearest computer to smithereens, I’d be out about 800 smackers more if I chose to take my well-earned rage out on the Mac. 
• One is portable. The other weighs like 9,005 pounds.

Other than that, they’re pretty much the same thing. “Overly expensive typewriters,” my mother complains. And most days, I think she’s not far from wrong.

But let’s get down to business. I’m writing this baby on the Mac largely because it’s portable and I just so happen to be in Miami. Yep. The Magic City. (Where does that nickname come from? I’m thinking it has something to do with how these overpriced hotels are making my money disappear. POOF! Like one of those Dyson vacuums practically sucking the cashola right out of my wallet.)

So I’m here for—of all things—a writer’s conference. I go to these a lot because it’s the one place where I can wear my writer-geek t-shirts and not get strange looks. Like my “Irony—it’s the opposite of wrinkly” and “Writer’s block—when my imaginary friends won’t talk to me” beauties that make my wife’s eyes roll way, way, way back in her head when I bust them out.

The conference has actually been decidedly nice. But I have questions about my stay at this near-the-airport Miami hotel. In no particular order, they are:

• Why does the bathroom fan and light turn on via the same switch? Don’t they realize that not everything I do in the bathroom requires industrial-strength air ventilation? (I didn’t even bring the Big Green Egg grill with me this time, for Pete’s sake!)
• A pal of mine who works in a big-time Vegas hotel advised me to slip the concierge some cash and my stay would be kingly. Did the Miami concierge have to laugh, though, when I accidentally slipped him a twenty-peso note vs an Andrew Jackson? (Okay, 20 pesos is worth about a buck, I now realize, but it sports a lovely picture of Benito Juarez on the front of the bill—Mexicans often refer to him as their own Abraham Lincoln. Surely that counts for something, right?)
• I overheard one of the maids talking about “repurposing leftover pie.” No further comment is necessary.

I always try to sneak some time away from out-of-town conferences and do a bit of local exploring, which I managed to make happen during this trip. Miami, I’ve found, is a strange place. I felt a bit like I was a cultural anthropologist checking in on some bizarre social experiment. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of visiting Miami recently, I’ll share ten things that I’ve now learned about Miami, the butt of the Gunshine State.

1. Conan the Barbarian car murals are still hip.
2. Jackets are only necessary in movie theaters and during like three days in mid-February (or so I hear).
3. All time-specific plans are +/- 30 minutes.
4. A white mesh top does go with magenta hot pants. On a guy.
5. One billion percent humidity does exist.
6. Anyone who walks outside for more than a city block will step on an average of 2.9 cockroaches and/or lizards.
7. Giving cockroaches names like “water bugs” or “cockies” does not make them cute. Or less icky beneath one’s shoe.
8. All Miami drivers are apparently allowed to follow the rules of the road from their country of origin. (It’s enough to make you bang your head on your 190°-steering wheel.)
9. A $13 12-oz. Bud Light on South Beach tastes almost the same as $5 6-pack of Bud Light in my Sarasota fridge.
10. It rains. A lot. As in build-an-ark time.

That being said, when I head back up I-75 and say “Hasta la vista, baby!” to the pushy club promoters, the endless construction sites, and the underdressed tourists asking everyone they see for a cocaine hookup, I can’t help but think this:

Why is there a law in Miami making it illegal for men to be seen in public wearing a strapless gown?

Don’t worry. The sweat-sheen of nostalgia will do wonders and come December, I’ll be itching to spend $200+ per night to go to that same conference at that same hotel again next January. I think I’ll try a different strategy then and go in disguise. I’ve got a Dan Marino jersey, white canvas pants, and deck shoes just sitting in my closet, ready to transform me into a Miamian.  

(I’m already working on the lingo, using “supposably” and “irregardless” like all the time now.) 

In the meantime, stay tuned for the next issue of my humor column, where we explore the virtues of the Cuban sandwich and uncover the correct answer to the age-old question that culinary sages love to ponder: to press or not to press?

Got something funny to share? Want to explain to Ryan how unfunny he is? Have a good cartoon about penguins wearing hats? Send it all to ryan@scenesarasota.com with the subject line “Delete This Please!”