Tampa: Good from Afar, Far from Good
I was walking to my car outside the Whole Foods yesterday, proudly parked in the spot up front reserved for Expectant Mothers; I’m fat enough to pull it off but more importantly, these spots are usually adjacent to the ones marked for handicapped. Pregnancy is not a handicap and so I park there in spite. When I reached for my cel phone- too late- there was a voicemail from my HUD friend who is on a week-long sojourn to Tampa.
And so this blog is dedicated to her.
And to my Company X Friends who are there this week at their Field-Sales-Quarterly Business-Review-Drunk-Fest-Brown-Nosing-Suck-Up.
There are a few things you should know about Tampa.
First, Florida is a red-state except for a few transplanted New Yorkers who make their home on the east coast of the state and gave us the expression ‘hanging chad’. Tampa is all about being republican, talking about how stupid the democrats are and having ‘family values’. But Tampa love, love, loves the porn, stripper and adult entertainment industry. Only in greater Tampa Bay can you park once to go to both “Diamond Jubilee” and Starbucks which are both only a few short blocks from La Petite Academie because hey, strippers need child-care too.
There is only handful of quaint, locally owned establishments. This is because greater Tampa Bay is “God’s Waiting Room” and the over 65 year old set doesn’t like to be surprised. They want to go to the same ol’ Applebee’s they went to back up in Ohio before they retired to their double-wide back in ‘98. Old people love the familiar so if you want fine dining, looks no farther than Maggiano’s.
The airport is the only airport in the United States where it’s still ok to park outside of baggage claim to wait for your passenger. In fact you put your car in park, get out, and walk around smoking a cigarette for more than an hour before you catch the corner eye of the rent-a-cop assigned to the area. Again, it all goes back to old people. Forget TSA regulations or the standards of safety and security practiced everywhere else. In Tampa, it’s all about getting the old people from the plane to the car with the least amount of grousing. In DC, if you so much as stop and push a passenger out of your car while it’s still moving, you’ll get a cop gesturing wildly for you to haul it out of there and a ticket for speeding when you finally do.
Security checkpoints. No matter what, you will get stuck following the German tourist trying to hand-check 4,000lbs of sea-shells. Allow extra time.
Ybor City is without a doubt Tampa’s must over hyped street of nothing and yet everyone who visits Tampa is sent to Ybor as though they might find the Crystal Skull. It’s akin to telling people in DC that they “must” go see the White House.
Strip Malls blend seamlessly one after the other each with a pawn shop, bail bondsman, lingerie modeling/ massage parlor and in perhaps the only saving grace, a Starbucks.
So what’s good about Tampa Bay? Only this: some of my dearest friends make their homes there.
It’s enough.
Don’t you love the way they name things in Tampa? i.e. a nail salon is just “NAILS”