STRANGER THAN FICTION: HOW WILL MISSOURI GIRL FARE IN FORT LAUDERDALE?

It's 80 degrees this March Monday morning. The fan palms outside my apartment are barely moving in the soft Atlantic Ocean breeze. The tropical sun glistens off the swimming pool as two of my neighbors begin soaking in the ultraviolets, ignoring everything we know about melanoma.

This is the good part of living in South Florida.

After I finish writing this, I'll go to my real, 40-hour-a-week job. My compact, white Tercel will inch through downtown Fort Lauderdale toward Interstate 595 and then, if there's no traffic jam, I'll have the freedom of the open highway. I'll head west, darting among drivers who still aren't quite familiar with the rules of the American road, and probably witness a spectacular accident in the east-bound lanes.

The crush of too many people packed into too little desirable space is apparent.

This is the bad part of living in South Florida.

It wasn't my idea to come here, as I pointed out to The Other Half during a particularly brutal argument a week after we arrived. I'm not sure if a well-insulated woman like me can even survive a Fort Lauderdale summer.

And let's face it, South Florida doesn't have the most sterling reputation in the rest of the United States. People in Miami-Dade County have an uncanny knack for electing criminals. The news stories out of this area are amazing there was one in Saturday's paper about a woman who tried to kill her boss in Wal-Mart's optometry section by putting rat poison in his soda. The boss commented that his soft drink tasted a little funny, but finished it anyway and had to be rushed to the hospital.

The boss survived. His employee was caught on tape and arrested.

But something hounded my Missouri-native husband to look south. We applied for jobs down here, loaded up the U-Haul, and drove ourselves and our two kitties the 12 hours from Pensacola, Fla., to Fort Lauderdale.

I think Mr. Half had the urge to move because this area is so completely different from where we both grew up him in the greater Charleston metropolitan region, me in the bustling heart of Sikeston. The sheltered boy who became my gorgeous man wanted to strike out somewhere different and prove he could survive, even thrive, in his new surroundings.

He's doing fine. And no wonder! There's actually a radio advertisement down here that says: "Free liposuction with any breast implant package." You can imagine how well I blend in the land of thong bikinis and ridiculously pumped-up boobs. But amazingly, nobody pays much attention to a 6'3", blubbery woman in an area this diverse. Sure, the uncouth teen-agers only visiting "Where The Boys Are" might cast a disparaging look, but the permanent residents are from New York, Ontario, Jamaica, Cuba, or another of the Caribbean or South American nations.

In Fort Lauderdale, jokingly called "The Sixth Borough" because of all the Yankees, you can't stop and stare at everyone different than you or you'll never get anything accomplished. And there's a lot going on around here that one wants to do.

So here we are, the air conditioning running in early March, Romy and Bosco curled up with my still-sleeping, night-working husband, and me wondering if I have to get the breast implants if I want liposuction.

It's good to be writing for Cape Girardeau again. It's my strongest link with home.

Thanks for letting me come back.

Heidi Hall is a former writer for the Southeast Missourian now living in Fort Lauderdale. Contact her at newsduo@herald.infi.net