I go to Tin City so you don’t have to.

You owe me one.

Because Tin City sucks ass. And now you know, so you will never, ever have to go there. Not that you would. But if you found yourself starving near Naples, Florida, and your husband innocently said, “Hey, that place looks interesting,” you could unwittingly end up spending the better part of an afternoon there. And it would be somewhat awful.

I know. It happened to me.

As you know, from my tedious and extensive but nevertheless sporadic coverage of it, we were in Florida a few weeks back. We covered a lot of the state. A lot of it. This was mostly due to miscommunication, and the fact that my cousin, while lovely, tends to make plans without actually consulting people first. So while we landed in Ft. Lauderdale (where he lives), he thought we were landing in Orlando, so he planned a trip to Disney with the kids.

The result? We ended up driving three hours in the middle of the night through Florida. I do not recommend this.

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After a few days in Orlando, we headed over to Tampa to see our friends Lindsay and Eric, and meet their twins. It was awesome. I love children that aren’t mine.

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And then it was back to Ft. Lauderdale from Tampa. On the way, we stopped in Tin City, which is just outside of Naples. This was a mistake.

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You read more about the history of Tin City here. But as far as I understand, it was a clam-shelling and oyster processing plant back in the 1920s, and it’s now full  of shitty stores and terrible restaurants. So, I guess it was a lateral move.

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Since I felt too guilty to out-rightly take photos of some of the heinous clothing that was for sale, I surreptitiously did so. These photos do not do these garments justice. But then again, nothing short of a bonfire would.

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By now we were sufficiently starved. It was impossible to actually find any real food in Tin City, and several of the places we ventured into were packed and had huge wait lists. We finally found one restaurant that was able to seat us.

This should have been a sign.

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In all fairness, the place wasn’t that bad, but it served the sort of impractical, touristy food that you’d expect, given our surroundings. We couldn’t even order a decent salad. And a quarter of the way through our over-priced meal, we realized we mis-ordered. But we were starving and the waitress was so over-burdened that if we didn’t pounce and order immediately, we weren’t eating.

In retrospect, not eating may not have been a bad thing.

At least the place was right on the water, meaning that we had a fantastic view of  this dude:

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We headed back to car. Throughout the afternoon, Rand had joked that we would find it empty (we’re somewhat convinced that we’re going to get robbed after a debacle in San Francisco). I told him it wouldn’t happen, and we ended up making a $20 bet on it.

I am pleased to say that I won. Tin City had merely robbed us of our time and our souls.

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And the town wasn’t through with us, yet. While it is easy to enter Tin City, it is nearly impossible to leave. All the roads out of town were blocked by one-way streets. We started to think we’d be trapped there, forced to spend the rest of our days consuming fried clams while clad in asymmetrical dresses. It was a horrifying thought.

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Eventually, though, we were able to wave good-bye to Tin City …

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We headed out on the road again, irritated and somewhat ill-tempered. When we finally arrived in Fort Launderdale, we were cranky and once again hungry. My bad mood had many targets: I was angry at Florida, angry at traffic, and even angry at my cousin for living so damn far away. I illogically planned to walk into his house and given him an undeserved piece of my mind. But when I walked into his kitchen, I was greeted with this:

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And suddenly driving through Tin City doesn’t seem all that bad.

But don’t you go doing it.

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