Syntaxtual Healing

Dear Florida,

You call yourself the sunshine state, but nearly every time I have been to visit, it has rained. Sometimes only a little bit, sometimes for my entire stay. Sometimes so hard the power goes out and I have to eat my steak in the dark.

Your state is in 2 time zones, because it is the dumbest shape a state could ever have. You look like a toy gun drawn by a 4-year-old using his non-dominant hand. Your shape is so non-stately that people call you America's wang.

I have never visited the part of Florida that is in the central time zone, because the parts of Florida I do visit has more than enough tattooed rednecks to satisfy my craving for people-watching. After all the old people I observed in Orlando, I thought "nothing could top this!" Then I visited the gulf coast. This is where Florida hides all the people that live 365 days a year in trucker hats and oversized tank tops. I'm 75% sure these are the people inside the costumes at Disney, but I hug them anyway.

Your state bird is the Northern Mockingbird, even though your state has the largest breeding population of bald eagles in the contiguous US. Bald Eagles are majestic, powerful creatures, whereas mockingbirds are grey but the sound pretty. Come to think of it, stick with the mockingbird. (I could also bring up flamingos here as well, but that seems too easy).

You're sticky. You're hurricane-y. Every flight in and out of your state is full of sticky, shouting, poorly supervised children. You are where Northeasterners go to live out their golden years because it's cheap, and thanks to their poor circulation they don't realize they are slowly cooking themselves to death in your stewpot atmosphere.

Like any place, you have some positives. Disneyworld and Universal Studios are fun, and I hear Key West is a blast. But even these come with their own sets of issues (It's a Small World, Margaritaville, etc.). You have Cape Canaveral, probably because people would rather blast off into space than be stuck in Florida.

What it ultimately comes down to is the fact that anything I could do in Florida, I can do somewhere else and enjoy it more. What you need is some sort of draw that will bring back people like me, people who visit Florida only out of family obligation and not by choice. I have a few ideas for you.

1. Play up the gator factor. I mean, I know there are places to eat gator, places to see gators, but honestly, this should be everywhere. I should be able to ride a gator at Disney while eating gator on a stick. Quite frankly, I should be able to feed gator to a gator while eating gator on a gator. Gator.

2. Play up the croc factor. What, no crocs in Florida? GET SOME.

3. Put a dome on it. Get on the artificial atmostphere already. Get rid of the mega-humidity, make it only rain at night when no one cares, the benefits are endless. Plus no more crying when a frost kills all the oranges.

4. Maybe export something other than oranges?

5. Get back into the boy-band business. Remember how Florida used to churn out Disney stars, Nickelodeon stars, and premade boy bands? Call up Lou Perlman and get him on the next big thing. This won't really gain much appeal with people such as myself, but kids can make parents do anything, and going to see the next hottie pop sensation in Orlando will be easy once you get that dome working.

6. Hide the old people.

7. Become your own country. Everyone likes to visit foreign tropical locales. Plus, if this doesn't work, at least the U.S. got rid of you.

Florida, despite our differences, I hope you will take the time to consider my constructive feedback. I'm only trying to help.