STRANGER THAN FICTION: SO LONG, FAREWELL AND ALL THAT OTHER JAZZ

Next time, I'll burn my furniture instead of move it.

By the time you read this, I should have my first sunburn.

Yes, after 17 years as a proud Missouri resident, I'm moving to the Sunshine State of Hurricanes, also known as Florida. Pensacola, to be exact.

The Other Half and I started looking for jobs in larger newspaper markets a few months ago. We acquired a very diverse set of rejection letters, including my personal favorite from the Nashville Tennessean.

It read: "We received your information. Your job qualifications fit none of our openings at this time."

Now, I'm not a sensitive person by nature, but wasn't that a bit harsh? I wanted to fire off a return letter.

"Are you saying I'm not qualified or that you don't have any openings?" I'd ask. "Because I've read your mediocre rag and I'm MORE than qualified to work for it. May I please have a job now?"

It's just so humiliating looking for work. You put your heart and soul in the mail and wait for somebody in another city to throw them in the "round file."

But finally my sportswriter husband and I got an encouraging phone call from Pensacola. One of the newspaper companies passed our information along to one of the editors there.

The rest is history. I'm writing this a week in advance, so barring disaster, this is my first day on the job. Pray for me. No, I'm not kidding.

There's a lot I'll miss about Cape Girardeau, but I've narrowed the list to 10 things, in no particular order:

1. Those crazy hijinks between TCI and KFVS every three years. Incidentally, I'll be moving to a community where WGN, Comedy Central and VH-1 are represented on the cable system.

2. The Rush Limbaugh Bus Tour. A lady in Pensacola said her uncle returned home with a cup of dirt from the yard where Rush played as a child.

3. The Southeast Missouri State University professor's faces when the newspaper runs their salaries.

4. The local radio and television media's inability to get through three minutes of airtime without using the word "heartland."

5. The Rush Limbaugh billboard just south of St. Louis.

6. Crossing that Boogie Bridge to the Purple Crackle and watching a certain fellow columnist lose his jacket, wallet and checkbook.

7. The prospect of having not 10, not 11, but 24 whole movie screens within the Cape Girardeau city limits.

8. The undying devotion expressed for Rush Limbaugh by many Cape County Republicans.

9. Running into Ellie Mae and Jethro at the local Wal-Mart around 2 a.m.

10. Waiting for The Big One.

I won't have a humor column in Pensacola, but my current boss is allowing me to keep writing a column here. It will run in this same space every two weeks.

Hopefully, the columns will give everyone a look at life in Florida -- the good, the bad and the ugly. I was encouraged to hear that the Pensacola News Journal's sports editor had his roof torn off by two hurricanes in one year.

We're getting renter's insurance.

Former Southeast Missourian staff writer Heidi Nieland now works at a newspaper in Pensacola, Fla. Her column will appear every other Wednesday.