Florida needs some new nicknames and other things I learned as a newcomer

I thought I had Florida figured out: Mickey Mouse, Miami, and stories of the Florida Man. So what if I had never been to the Tampa Bay Area before?

I arrived in early June without an umbrella or sunscreen. My internship at the Tampa Bay Times was about to begin, sunscreen or not. Little did I know that roller coasters, the Amalie Arena and the Gulf of Mexico would become my office.

Over time, I learned some of the area’s pseudonyms: “The Big Guava,” “The Sunset Capital,” “The Gunshine State,” “God’s Waiting Room.” But after spending the entire summer searching for the rhythms of life and culture in Tampa Bay, I came to the conclusion that this state defies its own stereotypes.

Florida needs new nicknames. Surely we can come up with something better than “God’s Waiting Room,” after what I would call the Great Millennial Migration.

My credentials? I leave this piece of paradise with sunburnt skin (damn, SPF 15!) and a genuine affection for the area. (But still without an umbrella. I’ve learned that real Floridians don’t use them anyway.) I started driving without using my turn signals and spotted free parking on the beach, unofficial signs of “local status.”

Here are my formal suggestions for new nicknames, inspired by experiences too good to be untold. I’m keeping my free parking spot at the beach a secret, though.

Paradise for people watchers

They roam among us, wild and untamed – and I’m not talking about alligators.

During the second week of my internship, I entered their natural habitat, a realm of princesses, fairy dust and looming debt.

I’m talking about the Disney adult.

The species has evolved and interbred with content creators. I found myself surrounded by buffed-up, bippie-boppie influencers and all their tripods when Disney hosted a three-day media event before unveiling its Splash Mountain sequel, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.

On the first night, Disney treated us to an exclusive view of Epcot’s fireworks in front of the World Showcase Lagoon. After walking over 20,000 steps that day, it felt wonderful to sit on the concrete. The fireworks were spectacular, but the real entertainment was watching the content creators.

It was a paradise for people who wanted to people watch.

I slid to the left as a family of influencers came my way. The mother had a pink spiky mohawk and the father leaned backwards with a selfie stick in hand as they instructed their children to smile and spread their arms wide. I slid to the left again.

Then it was another family’s turn. The new mother, wearing a white babydoll dress and wedge heels, asked Hot Pink Mohawk Mom to take a video of her family watching the fireworks. The choreography was masterful. The daughter, dressed as Princess Tiana, sat on her father’s shoulders, the son stood between his parents, and the mother beamed lovingly at her daughter.

The mother with the pink mohawk took photos from every angle. Finally, the daughter came down from her father’s shoulders. But her mother was not satisfied. She ordered her husband to lift his daughter up again.

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I felt smug in my sneakers and with my sweaty face. All I know is that her feet hurt.

The city of anglers

Erika Almond was instructing me on how to pose with an American red snapper I had just caught. My hands were too high and I was holding the thing too low.

I was aboard Almond’s boat, covering the Suncoast Ladies’ Classic for my story. The day began at 6 a.m. and sent me 65 miles into the Gulf of Mexico with no cell reception and blind faith that these strangers weren’t going to sail on to Cuba.

Los Angeles calls itself the “City of Angels,” but Tampa Bay deserves recognition for its avid fishing community.

I learned that the sport is full of sex jokes. And that Almond prefers raunchy hip-hop and rap music. I swear, even the sea monsters 150 feet below us could hear Lil Wayne’s songs blaring from our ship.

I had never fished in my life, but I was recovering from my first catch of the day, a lane snapper. It would have been a real eye-catcher if it hadn’t had its belly bulging out of its mouth.

Apparently fish can suffer from something called barotrauma, which is caused by pressure changes as the angler reels in his catch. This causes the gases in the swim bladder to expand, pushing the stomach outward. Last summer, on a flight back from Belgium, my eardrum ruptured. Since my stomach didn’t fit into my esophagus, the experience of being half-numb was no longer so excruciating.

Thankfully, all of the red snapper’s organs were intact. I forced myself to remain silent as Almond told me to put my thumb in its eye socket. I hooked my index and middle fingers under its gill cover, pressed my thumb into the fish’s glassy eye socket, and clutched its belly with my left hand, pressing my lips together to keep from squealing. Poor guy, he thought I was giving him breakfast.

The snapper was in my hands, but I was like a fish out of water. Off into the cooler. Later I found my photo on the tournament’s Facebook page.

St. Creaturesburg

Forget chickens, I never imagined asking, “Why did the peacock cross the road?” while walking in my neighborhood. That wasn’t even my strangest creature encounter during my stay in the city.

On the same offshore trip with Almond, we set off for the day’s destination at around 4 p.m. as a thunderstorm was approaching. Fifteen miles closer to shore, the captain turned off the engine so we could swim.

Thank God. I hadn’t been to the bathroom all day. It seemed somehow, I don’t know, unprofessional to take off my Tampa Bay Times press pass to squat in front of strangers and let my urine stream into the wind.

Everyone jumped overboard. Almond asked if I could swim.

I did.

She asked if I was afraid.

Uh, should that be me?

I untied my messy hair from the rubber band and climbed off the back of the boat. I stared into the crystal clear azure and watched my feet step down. It felt like a scene from Finding Nemo.

The proverbial elephant began to rise from my bubble. Someone made a joke about “shark week.”

Wait a minute. I stopped peeing. Guess who had her period?

Speaking of “Finding Nemo”: You know this scene where Bruce the shark smells blood and loses all self-control? Journalists are friends, not food! Suddenly Was frightened.

Back on land, I searched for “Can sharks smell menstrual blood?” Then I texted my mom to say I was alive. A post from the Florida Museum of Natural History reassured me — at least a little: “Any bodily fluid released into the water is likely to be detectable by sharks. A shark’s sense of smell is very strong — allowing it to find prey from hundreds of feet away. Menstrual blood in the water could be detected by a shark, as could urine or other bodily fluids. However, there is no clear evidence that menstruation is a factor in shark bites.”

I later learned that we swam exactly where a great white shark attacked Almond’s boat in 2021.

That day, Almond was in the water for the first time in over three years.

Lia-Bay-Lity

You can learn a lot about a high school dropout and thrice-married man in ten hours on a boat. Add to that a storm brewing in Florida and you can feel like you’re being bonded by trauma.

A gust of wind carried the scent of my conditioner into Captain Patrick Foley’s nose.

“Herbal essences?” he guessed, before scolding me for the parabens. Scold me!

A storm from the north was moving directly toward the poster boat.

I knew things were going to go wrong when Captain Ron Pennington folded up his beach chair and packed up his Bible verses. It wouldn’t be possible to have a Tampa Bay Times article testifying to Florida’s absurdity without mentioning the torrential rains, clearly.

With hurricanes, low altitude, and equally fearsome drivers, I don’t even want to think about what the insurance bills are like here. Tampa Bay deserves the title of a great “Li-Bay-lity.”

The floating advertisement stays on the water rain or shine to fulfill contracts. Given our speed of 4.5 knots, I doubted very much that we would outsail the impending deluge. But by the time Foley turned around – perhaps with the blessing of an Indian – the threatening clouds had cleared.

Pennington could set up camp again.

Don’t worry, I didn’t get out of here without a hurricane experience. Debby baptized me with pouring rain just a few days later in true Florida style.