By Elaine Viets
"Board Stiff" is my May Dead-End Job mystery. This time private eyes Helen Hawthorne and her husband, Phil Sagemont, are hired by Sunny Jim’s Stand-Up Paddleboard Rental in mythical Riggs Beach, Florida.
When a customer dies in what looks like an accident, Sunny Jim insists she was murdered. Helen and Phil, along with dozens of others, saw her tumble off her paddleboard. Now they have to solve a murder with no witnesses and no weapon.
The setting is a cheerful beachfront town in South Florida, but I didn’t sit on the sand sipping margaritas to research my twelfth Dead-End Job mystery. I suffered for my art. I had to visit beach souvenir shops and check out the T-shirts. You won’t believe what’s on those shelves.
Florida may be the capitol of tacky, but visitors made us that way. I don’t know a single Floridian who would wear this T-shirt: PARTY WITH SLUTS – even if they did. But it sells on the beach.
I’ve never seen this snarky shirt on locals: I’VE STOPPED LISTENING – WHY HAVEN’T YOU STOPPED TALKING? But tourists buy it.
Tourist season ends here after Easter and Passover, but this weekend we’re packed with vacationers. The beach highway is plastered with these signs: "Caution. State Law – Must Stop for Pedestrians." Tourists are a protected species. We’re not allowed to kill them, in season or out of it. Visitors make it difficult for locals by staggering out into A1A with a beer in each hand. Nobody has 20-20 vision with beer goggles.
Along with the booze, the subtropical sun seems to soften tourist brains. Why else would someone buy these shirts?
NICE STORY BABE – NOW FIX ME A SANDWICH.
FOR MY NEXT TRICK I’LL NEED A CONDOM AND A VOLUNTEER.
I can’t imagine anyone in St. Louis wearing a shirt with a cartoon chef leering TONY’S ITALIAN – IF YOU LIKE MY MEATBALLS YOU’LL LOVE MY SAUSAGE around my hometown.
Wearing this shirt could be a public service: I PEE IN POOLS. But I suspect you’ll swim alone.
Somebody must buy these shirts, or they wouldn’t take up expensive display space. Locals rarely shop in beachside souvenir stores. Tourists must feel their vacation isn’t complete without a tacky T-shirt.
Do people really wear those once they get back home? Or are these shirts simply twenty bucks worth of temporary insanity?
Florida has its own brand of craziness. I saw this handmade sign on a souvenir shop in Lauderdale by the Sea: "No food, pets, wet feet. We Have Camera Surveillance!!"
Can a camera see if people’s feet are wet?
That shop had stacks of shirts that said: PLEASE TELL YOUR TITS TO STOP STARING AT MY EYES. I can’t imagine any woman desperate enough to date a dude wearing that. REEFER MADNESS was the only shirt I liked, and it featured coral reefs, not reefer.
My stomach turned when I saw Florida Gator Poop on sale. In a souvenir shop, it might be the real thing. I sidled closer and was relieved it was chocolate-nut candy. "Chocolate Lore," the package said. "To reduce calories, store your candy on top of the refrigerator. Calories are afraid of heights and will jump out of the candy to save themselves."
This research will make "Board Stiff" feel like a real day at the beach. I also noticed that the beer dives liked to cozy up to the sleazy T-shirt shops.
Which led me to devise the Viets Beach Law: The sleazier the bars, the slimier the T-shirt shops.
"Board Stiff," my new Dead-End Job mystery, will be published as a
hardcover and an e-book this May. Pre-order from booksellers including bn.com, Amazon.com or Mystery Lovers Bookshop.
Speechless. Round our way you can get "Davis", "Davis, CA" "UC AGGIES" or "I [tomato] THE DAVIS FOOD CO-OP" and that's your lot. These are indescribably awful!
Posted by: catriona mcpherson | March 29, 2013 at 08:02 AM
The big mystery, Catriona, is who buys these shirts and do they ever wear them once they're home?
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 29, 2013 at 08:27 AM
Board Stiff is a great read, Elaine! I love how Helen Hawthorne has morphed from taking dead-end jobs to support herself to taking dead-end jobs undercover. Well done. This book really steps up the suspense, too.
Florida doesn't have a lock on gross and inappropriate souvenir junk, sadly. Moose dropping earrings are available up north, you know. Ick, ick, ick.
Posted by: Karen in Ohio | March 29, 2013 at 08:28 AM
Ick indeed, Karen. Here I was blaming the sun. Those earring are too gross to think about.
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 29, 2013 at 08:33 AM
Elaine, you have been out of the Midwest too long. Lake of the Ozarks offers all of those shirts. No Gator Poop that I know of. There is a whole line of "Dam" shirts available.
Posted by: Alan P. | March 29, 2013 at 09:14 AM
Oh, ugh, Elaine. I thought it was bad when my husband bought our daughter a shirt on Guana Cay that said, "I have sand in my happy place." But your "finds" trump that in awfulness.
Posted by: Marcia Talley | March 29, 2013 at 09:15 AM
How could I forget the Ozarks, Alan? I spent many vacations there as a kid. I wanted the Daisy Mae salt and pepper shakers in the souvenir shops. Daisy had an S on one breast and a P on the other.
Mom always led me away from that display.
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 29, 2013 at 09:18 AM
That's pretty tacky, Marcia. Did your daughter wear the shirt?
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 29, 2013 at 09:19 AM
I've seen worse, but those are really awful. I think people take them home, wear them once, and after all the unfavorable comment, they're cleaning rags. At least, I hope so.
Posted by: Charlaine Harris | March 29, 2013 at 09:28 AM
Me, too, Charlaine. Vacation brain is a terrible disease, but the effects wear off after you're home a few days.
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 29, 2013 at 09:43 AM
Oof. Marcia, I think you're in the lead.
Posted by: catriona mcpherson | March 29, 2013 at 09:58 AM
I suspect the tacky T-shirts are how some people convince themselves they're having fun when they're really sunburned, hungover, and they have sand in their happy place.
Posted by: krisneri | March 29, 2013 at 12:04 PM
I think you've got it, Kris.
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 29, 2013 at 03:03 PM
Rude, Crude & Lewd - the low-rent tourist mantra. Might also be the name of the t-shirt printers. You suffer this for how many months of the year?
Posted by: Tom Barclay | March 30, 2013 at 11:59 AM
The snowbirds show up around Thanksgiving and will start going home next week. Should mention that most tourists here are either New Yorkers, who wouldn't be caught dead in those shirts, or quiet Canadians.
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 30, 2013 at 01:55 PM
I grew up in the Shadow of Smokey Mountains National Park and still go back and visit family. T-shirts there are pretty tasteless- of a kind with the Ozarks and Daisey Mae.
I admit to being a Florida-visiting tourist- I go as often as I can with my Native-Floridian SIL. I have bought t-shirts- but of the Palm-tree and sailboat variety. We are a pretty quiet bunch- frequently I have been amazed at the loud rudeness of other tourists who seem to think that if they are on Vacation, every else is there just to serve them. Having lived in a "Vacation Destination" place- I feel hyper sensitive to that sort of thing. Gives tourists a bad name.
Posted by: Kelly Saderholm | March 30, 2013 at 04:12 PM
I hear you, Kelly. Some condos that rent to tourists and locals are hard to live in -- the tourists want to party all night, and who can blame them. Like you, we try to give tourists a good name when we go on vacation.
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 30, 2013 at 04:17 PM
We're riding out the last hurrah here. Clearwater was packed yesterday.
TripSmarter says we have one week left, but that's not bad:
http://www.tripsmarter.com/travelinfo/panama-city-beach/spring-break-college-university-dates
Posted by: Sarah Glenn | March 31, 2013 at 09:16 AM
I wouldn't dare drive down A1A, the beach road, right now, Sarah. I can stand spring break a little longer, and those tourist dollars are good for all of us.
Posted by: Elaine Viets | March 31, 2013 at 10:12 AM