STRANGER THAN FICTION: RANDOM THOUGHTS FROM THE LONG DRIVE HOME TO FT. LAUDERDALE

The seven-hour drive between Tallahassee and Fort Lauderdale allows a driver plenty of time to think.

Most of it is on Florida's Turnpike -- not the Florida Turnpike, as any normal state would name its major thoroughfare -- which doesn't distract motorists with anything unnecessary, like scenery. The only attractions to break the monotony are eight service plazas, two orange groves and an unusually odiferous cow pasture.

I wrapped up my three-week tour of duty covering Florida's state legislature on Saturday. For the last two weeks, I spent 12-hour days in the Senate press gallery, elbow-to-elbow with 25 other reporters in a room built for 15. And some people's deodorant gave out in the humid Panhandle spring.

Then I went back to the apartment rented by my employer. Two bedrooms, three adults. Guess who got the sofa?

My two roommates were a chain-smoking, female Queens, N.Y., native and a talkative, gay, hearing-impaired Jewish man -- four traits seldom combined in only one person. And he didn't mind talking about any of them at length, which is why I today know the ingredients of matzo, how to keep moisture out of hearing aids and the proper way to word an invitation to a gay wedding.

It was heady stuff for a Southeast Missouri native.

But I had a chance to reflect on all of that and more during my quiet ride home. So, some random thoughts:

* Sometimes I say yes when I mean no. I think it's part of being raised in the South. (And those of you who consider Sikeston to be the Midwest instead of the South, spend 10 minutes in Lambert's listening to the accents.)

So when my roommate "Jack" asked if he could ride back with me Saturday instead of waiting for his Sunday flight, I said yes when I meant to say, "No, because only one of us would arrive in Fort Lauderdale and the other would be on the side of the Turnpike with all his belongings."

So that put me in the uncomfortable position of having to back out hours after committing, which made me feel even worse. I need some assertiveness training. Maybe I could take classes from the Queens-native roommate, who would have said, "Not just no, but HELL no."

* I found a great oldies station outside of Tampa -- they specialize in upbeat, cheerful stuff. No Jimi Hendrix or The Doors. So I'm listening to the lyrics of "Love Me Tender" and "It Had to be You" and "Stranger in Paradise" and thinking about the difference between those songs and the songs of today.

You have: "Oh my darling, I love you, and I always will" and "Open your eyes to this stranger in paradise, I'm a stranger in paradise." Compare that to: "You and me, Baby, ain't nothin' but mammals, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel" and "You're a big, fine woman, won't you back that thing up."

What happened?

* The service industry gets increasingly worse the further south you drive in Florida, which is different from the standard in the rest of the nation. You'll generally get friendlier service in Georgia than in New York, for example.

However, when I filled up the tank in Tallahassee, the counter worker gave me a cheerful, "Here's your change. Have a nice day!"

At the service plaza south of Orlando, I got, "Your order should be ready in a minute" at the fast-food counter, which wasn't overly pleasant but at least informational.

At the toll plaza outside West Palm Beach, the cashier just grunted at me.

Welcome home, huh?

* Communities across this country are considering banning the use of cell phones while driving. I partially agree.

Only men should be banned from using cell phones while driving.

Clinical studies have proven that men can only concentrate on one task at a time, i.e., driving OR talking on the phone. My stepdad, for example, would routinely make the turn to work instead of church because he was thinking about his job while driving our family to Sunday-morning worship.

On the other hand, I've watched my mother talk on the telephone while cooking dinner, feeding the baby, helping another child with homework and assigning chores to the rest of us.

Under my plan, only males who could wash dishes and help little Johnny figure out the square root of -1 simultaneously would be allowed to use cell phones while driving.

* State government is scary. I never knew that until I watched a legislator try to slip an amendment allowing cities to ban pit bulls onto a bill banning the sale of cat fur.

Heidi Nieland is a former Southeast Missourian staff writing living in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Contact her at newsduo@herald.infi.net.