Read Online I'll Mature When I'm Dead by Dave Barry - Free Book Online
Authors: Dave Barry
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Miami’s population consists of violent criminals, and the bulk of those are elected officials. The rest of us Miamians are regular people, just like the people in your town: We work hard, try to raise our kids right, and are always ready to help out our neighbors by laying down covering fire when they go outside to get their newspapers.
I’ll grant you that in the past Miami has had some problems with “putting out the welcome mat” for tourists. I’d say the low point came in 1994, when a group of Norwegians, headed for a vacation in the Bahamas, made a common rookie-visitor mistake: They landed at Miami International Third World Airport
(Motto: “You Can Have Your Luggage When You Pry It From Our Cold, Dead Fingers”). Most travel experts recommend that even if your final destination is Miami, it’s better to fly to an airport in some other city—if necessary, Seattle—and take a cab from there. Or, as Savvy Air Traveler magazine suggests, “simply jump out of the plane while it’s still over the Atlantic.”
Nonetheless these Norwegian tourists landed at MIA, where they boarded a free courtesy shuttle van that was supposed to take them to a hotel. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the van was then boarded by two men who diverted it and robbed the Norwegians at gunpoint. That is correct: Their hotel courtesy van was hijacked . This story got BIG play in Norway, which does not have a lot of violent crime. If there were a TV crime show called CSI: Norway , most of the cases would involve improperly labeled herring.
So the van hijacking was definitely a “black eye” for Miami tourism. It did not help that in the same year, there was another unfortunate, highly publicized incident involving a European tourist. This was a German who spent the night at a hotel near the Miami airport. When he checked out the next morning, he complained about a bad smell in his room. So a maid went to check it out. She looked under the bed, and, to her horror, she found: an Amway representative.
No, seriously, what the maid found under the bed was even worse: a human corpse. This was not a recently deceased corpse; the police concluded it had been there for quite a while.
As you might imagine, this was another story that became a big media deal back in the tourist’s home country. The Germans are known for being finicky about cleanliness. They might let it slide if a hotel housekeeping staff failed to notice a dust bunny or two under the bed, but they draw the line at decayed corpses. If you find a corpse under the bed at a German hotel, you can be sure it’s a fresh corpse. Once again, Miami looked bad.
But my point is, these stories took place during a different era , specifically: the past. Miami today is a completely different city. What would you say if I told you that, since the year 2000, the city’s overall rate of violent crime is down 17.3 percent, and crime against tourists is down by 36.8 percent? If you would say, “You are totally making those numbers up,” you would be correct. But I’m pretty sure things are better.
I’m not saying Miami is Disney World. As in any other large urban area, you have to use your common sense to avoid potentially dangerous situations. To give you an idea what I mean by “potentially dangerous situations,” here’s the beginning of a Miami Herald story from November 2006: “A manhunt is on for fifteen men who crashed a baby shower in a rented hall, killed a partygoer, and wounded four other guests with AK-47 assault r ifles.”
That is correct: There was a shootout, featuring assault rifles, at a baby shower . It is not uncommon for tempers to flare at ceremonial gatherings in Miami; there was once a shootout in a funeral home here during a wake . Other events that can be “iffy” from a safety standpoint in Miami include birthday parties, football games, proms, nightclubs, Halloween, July Fourth, Christmas, and of course New Year’s Eve, which in Miami involves more
I’ll grant you that in the past Miami has had some problems with “putting out the welcome mat” for tourists. I’d say the low point came in 1994, when a group of Norwegians, headed for a vacation in the Bahamas, made a common rookie-visitor mistake: They landed at Miami International Third World Airport
(Motto: “You Can Have Your Luggage When You Pry It From Our Cold, Dead Fingers”). Most travel experts recommend that even if your final destination is Miami, it’s better to fly to an airport in some other city—if necessary, Seattle—and take a cab from there. Or, as Savvy Air Traveler magazine suggests, “simply jump out of the plane while it’s still over the Atlantic.”
Nonetheless these Norwegian tourists landed at MIA, where they boarded a free courtesy shuttle van that was supposed to take them to a hotel. So far, so good. Unfortunately, the van was then boarded by two men who diverted it and robbed the Norwegians at gunpoint. That is correct: Their hotel courtesy van was hijacked . This story got BIG play in Norway, which does not have a lot of violent crime. If there were a TV crime show called CSI: Norway , most of the cases would involve improperly labeled herring.
So the van hijacking was definitely a “black eye” for Miami tourism. It did not help that in the same year, there was another unfortunate, highly publicized incident involving a European tourist. This was a German who spent the night at a hotel near the Miami airport. When he checked out the next morning, he complained about a bad smell in his room. So a maid went to check it out. She looked under the bed, and, to her horror, she found: an Amway representative.
No, seriously, what the maid found under the bed was even worse: a human corpse. This was not a recently deceased corpse; the police concluded it had been there for quite a while.
As you might imagine, this was another story that became a big media deal back in the tourist’s home country. The Germans are known for being finicky about cleanliness. They might let it slide if a hotel housekeeping staff failed to notice a dust bunny or two under the bed, but they draw the line at decayed corpses. If you find a corpse under the bed at a German hotel, you can be sure it’s a fresh corpse. Once again, Miami looked bad.
But my point is, these stories took place during a different era , specifically: the past. Miami today is a completely different city. What would you say if I told you that, since the year 2000, the city’s overall rate of violent crime is down 17.3 percent, and crime against tourists is down by 36.8 percent? If you would say, “You are totally making those numbers up,” you would be correct. But I’m pretty sure things are better.
I’m not saying Miami is Disney World. As in any other large urban area, you have to use your common sense to avoid potentially dangerous situations. To give you an idea what I mean by “potentially dangerous situations,” here’s the beginning of a Miami Herald story from November 2006: “A manhunt is on for fifteen men who crashed a baby shower in a rented hall, killed a partygoer, and wounded four other guests with AK-47 assault r ifles.”
That is correct: There was a shootout, featuring assault rifles, at a baby shower . It is not uncommon for tempers to flare at ceremonial gatherings in Miami; there was once a shootout in a funeral home here during a wake . Other events that can be “iffy” from a safety standpoint in Miami include birthday parties, football games, proms, nightclubs, Halloween, July Fourth, Christmas, and of course New Year’s Eve, which in Miami involves more
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