How to Become a Florida Girl

(in no particular order)

Get stung by a jellyfish. You’ll choose the ones that wash up in the winter with purple guts cause you’ll think they look pretty, and it’ll sting your toe, cause every Florida girl wears sweatpants to Juno in the winter. It’ll sting bad. Your toes will curl in towards your heel in pain. You’ll cry to the lifeguard who’s an old friend of every Florida girl, so you’ll have to recognize him from second period biology and say it, say what you remember of him in high school, before the lifeguard helps you. Second Period Bio Kid will give you a choice: He can pee on your toes, or you can, or you can writhe in the sand in pain cause you picked up a manowar. You’ll choose to throw up in the sand and thank Second Period Bio Kid for offering to pee––to help––anyways. 

Eat two oranges for breakfast a day. Your teeth will feel soft from the citrus, like if you wanted to, you could get out of class for biting through your top left tooth. Florida girls always hold the power in their courts. 

Know your cardinal directions at any point in time. You knew a kid once, the summer before sophomore year, who could guess east blindfolded every time. You spun him dizzy once and he still got it right. He asked everyone to call him Johnny and you all did. You asked Johnny how he could do this––tell the east exactly––and Johnny says it’s cause of the sea, how the stench of the rotted seaweed follows in the air drifts. All you have to do is smell it. 

Get a Breakers Beach Club membership so that every girl in your high school is friends with you, wants to get an invite. Real Florida girls trash talk––they don’t get trash talked––and this is your ticket in. You learn that the Breakers has great tanning oil after cotillion practice, too. 

Pick a favorite beach access. You’ll hate Palm Beach cause it’s full of old people. You’ll pick from the north ones––the 40s––up in Jupiter. Actually, you’ll pick the access two south from Juno pier where you used to run with Johnny and some friends in the hot sand cause your heels would burn in midday, before the 2:30 thunderstorm. You’ll know it’s your favorite access cause there are never jellyfish washups here––there’s no pier for them to congregate, to trash talk the other jellyfish. In that way, you don’t need Second Period Bio Kid to again ask if he needs to pee on your toes. You’ll only ever get stung by a jellyfish once.