my new souvenir t-shirt.

I'm getting a t-shirt made for myself and the members of my last vacation. They're going to each be personalized variations of: "I went to Key West, got married, robbed, interrogated, sunburned, attacked by stray cats/roosters, endured a monsoon (and a singing transvestite), and all I got was this lousy t-shirt."

I live in Manhattan, land of muggings, pickpockets, and public urination. I manage to survive in fucking Manhattan, and within three hours of arriving in Key West for a mini break, I'm robbed. Some asshole broke into our house, went through our bags, came in my BEDROOM, stole some jewelry and cash, and left.

I was actually in Key West because my mother got married. I didn't actually see the wedding...except on video tape, which was thankfully not stolen. I think they married on a Tuesday. It reminds me of the opening line of The Stranger by Camus: "Maman died today. Maybe it was yesterday. I do not know." Except for me....."Mom married today. Maybe it was yesterday, I do not know."

After the robbery, I had my first official mooch off my new step-daddy-o for $5 for a beach chair, in which I laid facing the sun on the southernmost beach of the United States. I fell asleep for, as I'm told, nearly three hours, which when combined with being in the sun on the southernmost beach of the United States makes for a pretty hefty sunburn...the kind that 5 hours later, as you are on your way to watch a transvestite sing Madonna songs in a monsoon, causes blinding headaches and nausea and forces you to run home in the rain without slipping in your wet flip-flops when you stop suddenly to dodge a stray rooster or hurdle a stray cat, both of which are terrifyingly rampant in Key West. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After the burn, before the singing transvestite, there was a police interrogation. While my CSI agent wannabe sister phoned in the results of the fingerprint and DNA tests, Agents Mom, Joanie, and Jeff contributed plot-twisting enhancements, such as following around the police and snapping pictures/videotaping/offering advice from the pool while they collected evidence. (When I say "they" I actually mean "she," as in the sole police lady/detective chick sent to our scene. She said she would have called the real CSI team in if we hadn't totally screwed up the crime scene by touching everything in sight.)

Anyhow, after the interrogation, and during the monsoon, I slept off my third-degree burns while my counterparts watched some tranny man (who looks better in spandex and a pointy Madonna cone bra than I ever could) perform in some sort of Diva cabaret and make some derogatory comments about New Zealand and sheep. I, of course, missed it all, because I was back at the scene of the crime watching WWE Smackdown and reheating goldfish crackers on my bright red, radiating chest.

But don't be fooled--I had a blast. I mean really, it's not every day you wind up in the Key West Police Department files as Victim #3 of case CX-487Z. I went to Key West, and all I got was this lousy case number.