South Beach

I’m back from convention, and South Beach is all it’s rumored to be. The weather was exactly perfect the entire trip and so was the scenery. It was worth the three hour drive in the snow and the 5 hours on the airplane to get there. Too bad I had hardly any time to take advantage of it — too busy working.

The company I work for really put a great show together. They sponsored a party that I would say boasted about 6,000 in attendance. There were 2 bands, people on stilts, fire jugglers, food, and all sorts of other beach party themed things, and an amazing venue. The kick in the teeth came when everyone from our company had to wear these ugly-as-sin Hawaiian shirts – even the CEO got in the act. Oh the shirts. I was walking down the hall when four smoking hot girls came walking around the corner. They looked like they’d spent hours getting ready, all dolled up to go clubbing on spring break. One of them gave me a “hey there” and then I was instantly shot down by the one next to her with “sorry about the shirt”. I managed to respond with a fake laugh that could be translated as “oh please shoot me now!” Damn you Hawaiian shirt. Damn you.

Speaking of smoking hot chicks, the beach was an experience. One quickly discovers that a single piece of dental floss is considered an entire swimsuit in South Beach. Throw on a bikini top and you’ve got a fabulous evening outfit. Down there it’s very hard to distinguish between hookers and, well, non-hookers. By my count, using attire as the sole measuring device, the females were about 96% hookers. Nobody wears any clothes, and when they do, one of the primary pieces of clothing is some sort of underwear. I swear they were wearing headbands as skirts. I think I saw more “professional transactions” at the hotel bar than I did at the show.

It’s easy to spot the tourists because they’re sun burned as hell, and are not on the South Beach Diet, much like this guy. I think the real reason everyone down there is skinny is because of the slow service and high prices at restaurants. Every meal we ate took at least 2 hours and was expensive as hell. The Surf and Turf at a restaurant we went to was $140, and this place was nothing real fancy — that was not including drinks. A bottle of a domestic beer was typically about 6 dollars – that includes a 17 percent gratuity automatically added in. A person could easily spend nearly $100 on every meal. At the convention, a two liter bottle of coke, $3.50. A cold sandwich in a plastic container was $9.

Now I’m back in Minnesota, where it’s 80 degrees colder, and everyone looks fat.