At long last, Lauderdale.

The end of the road.

Miss Carol and me desperately needed proximity to the airport ’cause our quickie honeymoon redo was rapidly gasping it’s last breaths. We like short, intense vacations and this one was nearing it’s edges.

It was time.

We cruised into Fort Lauderdale feeling a little bruised and raw from two nights of hotel room rockin’ and rollin’  and immediately headed to an old haunt Miss Carol and me knew from the way way back seeking cocktails and something to eat. I mean ANYTHING eating-wise would’ve put a smile on my face.

But they were closed.

So we went across the street and sipped beers until they opened.

And when they did, we streamed in and get this? Our bartender was an ex-fashion model. Not only was she not hard on the eyes, her stories of her travels were flipping amazing. I mean, this chick had a billboard on Times Square. How cool is that?

Did I want to take her home with me? Oh yeah. But Miss Carol was staring at me sternly.

So we headed back out into the bland and vanilla-ee streets of Lauderdale. Fort Lauderdale to me is just kinda generic. It’s like every other mediocre beach place. A yawner. Even with spring break going on.

Yup.

Another spring break. And, honestly?, this one was kinda bland and vanilla-ee too. Miss Carol and me spent some time around the hotel pool and then, later on, cruised the streets and it seemed to be the same thing everywhere.

Dudes. Fort Lauderdale was chock-a-block full of little white girls with tiny discreet, easily hidden, and socially acceptable tattoos and probably familially approved belly piercings, hanging out sipping frozen and largely alcohol absent drinks sunning themselves and bitching and moaning about the quality of the mostly nerdy geeky guys flocking around them, whom, for their part, were murmuring nervously amongst themselves lest they draw the ire of the little princesses.

Whew. Is that a sentence or what?

It’s funny but the Offspring song Pretty Fly kept slipping in and around and slowly caressing my brain. It fit so perfectly what was going on around us, I had to laugh. What the hell happened to men?

Anyway.

Later on while I was peeing off the hotel roof, I had to reflect on the radically wild differences between spring breaks at South Beach and Lauderdale.

I’ll take South Beach any day.