Easy Florida

I can't help but like Florida. It's a weakness. I know all the reasons why 'communities' gutted by multi-lane limited access roads are soul and air destroyers. I understand the absurdity of huge colonies of retirees banding together in gated communities, running their air conditioning full blast, venturing out for the occasional round of golf and then the trip to Walgreen's for groceries. Florida's big, flat, hot, wet, silly and, in a slightly odd way, kinda sexy for me. For a family vacation, there's something wonderfully retro about jumping off the plane, sliding behind the wheel of a huge van and pulling up in front of the borrowed hacienda, replete with a massive grill and a nice pool on the screened in patio. I violated about a dozen things that I'm pretty sure I believe in and couldn't muster much resistance. Maybe it was just the heat.

Perhaps the defining moment of the trip was a visit to a dacquiri bar when I asked the perky waitress if they had wifi. She cocked her head quizzically.

"Wifi? Is that some kinda liquor?"

I wanted to hug her, but didn't. The bouncer was huge. My wife, a physician, knows how to inflict physical pain in ways you cannot imagine.

So yes, it was still tech weenie me asking for the wrong kind of hookup in a hot beach bar, but I did let go.

I topped it all off by wandering into a tattoo parlour and getting inked. The guy who stands in grocery stores for hours reading labels, comparing ingredients against a mental checklist of carcinogens and other slow killers walked into a little store full of strangers and sat still for a couple of hours while they injected toxic inks into his dermis.

I lost my mind, and I'm not sorry.

I'm discovering that getting older is a bit like being very young, but in a good way. You can live comfortably with contradiction.