Year of the Rat

What's the difference between hell and Orlando, Florida? It's not the heat. In July, it's every bit as hot in Orlando as in the lower level of Hades. But you can get a drink in Orlando. An over-priced, overly sweet drink without anything close to the proper bourbon-to-ice-cube ratio. But a cocktail nonetheless. In hell, not so much.

Also, the hotels in hell are probably not adorned with Spongebob Squarepants wallpaper. Maybe they are. But I don't think so. However, I think it is very likely that in hell, as at the Nickelodeon Hotel, patrons are accosted by an unfortunate teenager in a giant, bobbing, plastic Dora the Explorer head as they try to masticate the tough, horrendously expensive buffet prime rib. Only without the privilege of washing it all down with comforting swills of absurdly priced, syrupy bourbon.

I don't get out much, preferring a hermit's life in the Cracker Compound to mixing with my fellow Americans. And a long weekend in Rat City underscores the wisdom of that arrangement. Having hobnobbed with my fellow sun-broiled breeders and their sniveling, avaricious offspring for 68.5 hours in a commerce-despoiled swamp, I begin to think we actually do deserve the leadership of George W. Bush and perhaps John McCain as an encore. Christ in mouse-ears, I hope I'm wrong.