Bienvenidos a Miami!

Every year the Goldstein family embarks on a pilgrimage to Disney World. Look, I know it’s about the nerdiest thing in the entire, uh, World, but disregarding the plethora of pint-sized humans who seize every possible opportunity to touch my with their sticky fingers, or waddle in front of me causing me to faceplant it in the middle of Tomorrowland (true story), it’s always a lot of fun for me.

The 2012 event happened last summer. Like a tennis court, Disney World is basically one gigantic parking lot and in the Floridian summer it’s a solid ten to fifteen degrees hotter than the normal sweltering temperature. For five days I was perpetualy pooped, stinky, and profusely sweating, which, I suppose, made me very much like all the rugrats I despised and with whom I was forced to share a breathing space. By the end of the trip I was more than ready for some “adult” time and to escape the five days of family and sobriety. Instead of flying home to Boston with the rest of the clan, I flew to Miami to visit friends.

On the flight, as seems to somehow be a pattern, I got seated next to a girl with the largest set of breasts I had ever encountered in real life. She hauled herself into her seat, H-cups spilling over into my personal space. (Side Story: Freshman year of college, my friend Vinny and I were in the same Psychology class. It was held in a gigantic lecture hall with thee hundred seats. Every class we’d sit together, in the same general vicinity, but never, let the record show, in the same place exactly. Somehow, however, a girl I wasn’t friends with and whom we had dubbed “Missiles” [for obvious reasons] always, always, always sat next to me. This would have been fine under normal circumstances, but that lecture hall had those tiny foldout desks, and Missiles’s baggage hung onto my small desk every time. I’m not exaggerating in the least when I say that there is a boob-shaped crescent on every page of my notes from that class: I literally had to write around her.) Avoiding my airline neighbor’s situation, I curled up next to the window in my sweatshirt and slept for the thirty-seven minute flight.

When I landed in Miami, my friend Jill came to pick me up. I had met Jill the year earlier through her brother, one of the boys who appeared in the earlier post where after hopping into a sketchy stranger’s car, we ended up on the side of the road in the middle of no where in Turks & Caicos. Jill can drink literally anyone under the table, which is both absurdly impressive, but also a tad bit frightening: had I not beheld it with my very own eyes, I wouldn’t have believed that any girl--or dude for that matter--could drink 90% of a bottle of grape vodka. Straight. In one evening. And survive. Jill also has a certain savoir faire when it comes to the male gender: as has been previously established, I am usually a wretched wreck when it comes to almost all interactions with the opposite sex, but Jill somehow is always able to snag a guy. She always had some dude texting her, calling her, whatever-ing her, but when she picked me up last year, she had a real, live boyfriend.

Now I had never witnessed Jill with a boyfriend before so I was entirely unprepared for what lay ahead. I couldn’t imagine it would be too horrifying though: like me, she dislikes most other girls, thinks the majority of girly emotions and feelings and having to aways “talk about it” is bogus, and just seems generally tougher over all. Alas, it was too much to hope for, because the moment I hunkered down in her Volkswagon, she was gushing about her new man, Evan. I let her babble on, and when she asked if I wanted to meet him, I obliged. Although unenthused about the prospect of third-wheeling it on my Miami weekend right from the get-go, I’d be lying if I said I wasn't intrigued as to what sort of man she’d settled on.

Evan was working the night shift as a security guard at a fancy apartment building on South Beach. It was beyond quiet, so when we rolled up, he was the only person in sight. Still wearing my sweatshirt, we hopped out of the car and I introduced myself. As I stuck my hand out to say Hey, Jill launched herself at Evan and commenced a make-out session that reminded me only of Brad the Bad Kisser and Charlotte on Sex and the City (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ynsr1bQtYts--you only need to watch the first thirty-two seconds). I suddenly felt as if I were a geeky extra in a porno as these two fondled each other under the fluorescent lights. The slobbering ensued for the next fifteen minutes and I stood there, alone, scuffing my glittery Toms against the floor. A lone golf cart cruised by, slowed to watch the scene, then bounced back down the driveway. 

When they were through, about an eternity later, they clung to one another like spider monkeys while Evan asked me the requisite I-Just-Met-You-But-Should-At-Least-Pretend-To-Be-Mildly-Interested-In-You questions. I thought that despite the grossly excessive PDA, he seemed totally fine, but as they lurched into one another for round two I suddenly felt like I was going to throw up and/or pass out, and not in my usual snarky, figurative sense: for Real. I started to sweat and hyperventilate and suddenly couldn’t feel my fingers or toes. I ripped off my sweatshirt and essentially collapsed on the ground of the parking garage. Evan kindly brought my a Dixie cup of yellowish water and they both leaned over me, peering into my moist face with concern. “I’mOKI’mOK,” I muttered, trying to see straight, and with my assurance, the two lovebirds went right back at it yet again. So there I was, on South beach in Miami, laying on my back, all alone, staring at the cracked ceiling of a parking garage, trying my hardest to not have a second encounter with the Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream bar I’d devoured earlier, while my friend and her boyfriend salivated all over one another for a solid twenty minutes. When I was finally able to sit up, there was a Sasi-shaped wet spot on the cement floor, like some strange crime scene murder investigation. Thankfully Jill and I departed soon after, but I spent the rest of my visit listening to them baby talk one another over the phone. (If someone ever catches me doing that, stop me. I’d rather be single and alone. Forever.) 

So just when I thought that the loviness of others was something I could potentially tolerate, it turns out I practically passed out when forced to endure a close encounter. Love, it seems, truly does make me physically ill.

Sub-Par Stealth Shot of my airplane neighbor: