Dun-dun. Dun-dun-dun-dun...

I learned two very important things while on vacation in Florida:

- I need to live near the ocean

- You couldn't pay me to live in Ft. Lauderdale

Call me a killjoy but I have yet to understand the appeal of binge drinking, neon, Harleys, henna tattoos, or Hooters. Clearly I'm missing the fundamental genome that finds listening to John Cougar Mellencamp at Guantanamo levels awesome. And while my inner Kansan loves me some chain restaurants, shelling out $17 for the fish 'n chip platter at Bubba Gump's in a city where locally caught seafood is king just seems wrong. (Not that that stopped me from ordering the fish 'n chips at Bubba Gump's, mind you. But I felt hella guilty about it.)

Lest you think my vacation was all frat boys and fake tans, there was a little something called the ocean just two blocks away. Travel and Leisure Magazine just named the Ft. Laudedale public beach one of the best and I can totally see why. The water was bathtub warm and surprisingly clear, and beach chairs and umbrellas are provided (gratis in the a.m., $10 a pop when the heat kicks in). There was a migrating school of minnows right by the shore and I got to spend some quality time surrounded by millions - seriously, millions - of tiny, silvery fish. At one point I was joking with a supremely hot Irishman (as with most of the eye candy on the beach, gay, gay, gay) about the perils of standing in the middle of a school of fish (cue the theme to "Jaws") when he calmly informed me that a week earlier he'd been standing in the very same spot when suddenly all the minnows started leaping. He wasn't sure what was happening until he looked down and saw the fin.

The FIN.

He said the shark was about 8 feet long and seemed to have absolutely no interest in him, which is cold comfort if you ask me. The craziest part is that the lifeguard didn't seem to care. He simply said thanks and sat right back down. Apparently there has never been a shark attack that far south so he wasn't worried. (Uh, to me that just means there's a first time for everything.)

Needless to say, I kept my eyes peeled for leaping fish.

Speaking of fish - at the risk of sounding like a dumbass, is mahi-mahi dolphin? I ask because mahi-mahi was described on almost every menu in Ft. Lauderdale as dolphin meat. Could this possibly be true? Have I spent the bulk of my adult life eating Flipper?! 'Scuze me whilst I Google....

*UPDATE: While mahi-mahi is part of a species of fish called "dolphin", it is in no way related to the mammal. To which I say "whew".