One Crazy Night In Miami

The giant polar bear with beach ball that greets you immediately upon entering the front doors.

There’s a special approach to maximizing a 24-hour stay in any given city. Stephanie and I learned that lesson after a crazy night in Miami, a result of an overnight layover at the tail end of a vacation to Mexico.

When we initially booked our trip to Cancun, we noticed that we could get equally cheap flights and a hotel if we chose to stay in Miami overnight rather than flying directly home. Sick! Stephanie did all the travel planning and found this great deal on a hotel room in the art deco district of South Beach called the Lord’s Nash.

We arrive in Miami early Monday afternoon, take a bus from the airport to the nearest stop by our hotel, and proceed to drag our luggage 10 blocks down the sidewalk along the main drag in South Beach. It was a sight to marvel at, as convertibles with people sitting on the back of the car, feet in the actual back seat, drove down the road partying like it was Saturday night.

Approaching the hotel, we’re really surprised to see how fancy it is, considering the price of our 1-night stay. White stucco with gold tiling across the walls, marble floors with gold dust speckled throughout, a lux bar that looks like people from the 1920’s in tuxedos belonged, flapping away while drinking martinis … and a giant polar bear holding a beach ball, right in front of you as you enter the foyer.

“Well that’s quirky” we say to each other.

The desk is clerked by two very attractive, young Latinx men. “This place is so Miami” we think as we walk up to the desk to check in. Both men look at us with curiosity and sly smiles.

As we’re checking in, a gay couple exits the elevators, share a look with the two working the desk, then a smile towards us; but again, a sly smile. There was knowing behind that smile that we were not privy to.

We wave and say hi as they head out to South Beach.

The desk clerks hand us our keys with a cheeky “have a great night!” and we head to the elevators. I take a look at the room keys. There’s an animated woman shopping on the key with a word bubble that says “Bitch! I’m fabulous!” (I looked long and hard for the pic of this, but alas, cannot find it)

I look at Steph and ask “Babe? When you booked this hotel, is there any chance that you read the description of the hotel?”

“I mean, yeah, kind of, why?” she responds.

“Well, not that it matters, but I think you booked us a night in a gay hotel.”

“What do you mean?”

“Take a look at this room key. Also, the guys that checked us in, the guests that greeted us on their way out … they’re all variations on a theme.”

We enter our room and my curiosity was confirmed. This. Room. There was a floor to ceiling black and white photo of Elizabeth Taylor as Cleopatra behind the bed, and a wall sized mirror to the side of and above the bed. On the desk was a magazine titled Out Magazine.

“Well, I think that explains why everyone was acting like we were in the wrong building! LOL” I say as I toss the mag to Steph. We both share a huge laugh and lean into the experience.

“Time for mojitos!”

We exit the elevator and as we pass through the lobby, we throw out a buoyant “Heyyyyy!” to the desk bois, they hit us back with the same pitch and energy. 

Our choice of restaurants looks out across the beach, and features BOGO free mojitos. PERFECT. Monday is the right night to hang in South Beach.

Our first round shows up and the cup is like 22 ounces in volume. It’s a huge mojito. Liter of mojito. For $15, and a free one on the way, it’s a hell of a deal and a very well made drink.

Perhaps it was the mojito, or the vibes we got from the waitress, but I look at Steph with some strange determination and say, “I’m gonna buy weed from this waitress.”

She’s incredulous. “How do you even know she has any?”

“She either does or she knows someone, just trust me.”

I don’t know why she does, honestly. Every time I say this to her I don’t have a solid reason to be so confident, I just know something by intuition which seems to be enough to convince her.

The waitress returns for our 2nd round orders, and I pop the question: “Any idea where I might be able to buy some bud around here? We don’t need much, only in for the night.”

She immediately responds with “I got you. An eighth is like $40.”

“Great! I don’t have any cash though, you know where I can find an ATM close by?”

“Absolutely, we have one in the restaurant.”

I didn’t realize it at the time but I would come to buy weed in a pretty similar fashion legally in LA one day at the OG Cannabis Cafe, a restaurant and weed dispensary combo so normalized that you can just buy cannabis products from the waitstaff like you do food and beverage.

During this experience, however, in 2010, IN FLORIDA, I felt like the universe conspired in my favor to make this happen with such convenience.

I pull out cash and sit down to our next round. We drink up, and about halfway through, our waitress returns and drops a linen napkin folded up in my lap, the prize I seek hiding within. I hand her the $40 on top of our bill, we close out, and leave.

We’re fucking giddy. We’re also missing all the things we need to actually smoke this bag of weed. And we’re proper drunk off of ⅔ gallon of mojito. We stop into a convenience store at the corner of the block our hotel is on. Zig Zags, lighter, and we’re walking back to the Lord’s Nash.

Entering the lobby, we wave a drunken and much more enthusiastic “Heyyyyyy!” to our bois and they hit us back with the same energy, laughing at how much fun we’re having (and at our mojito faces).

I roll up a couple of joints in the room, using some card paper from Out Magazine for the crutch (as I had learned from Weedonardo a few years prior). We head out to smoke them.

Exiting the elevator, the couple that initially greeted us as we were checking in was arriving back to the hotel after their night’s escapades.

“Heyyyyyyy!” we yell out to the room.

“Heyyyyyyy!” they all yell back, laughing at us.

The beach in Miami is fucking enormous. The length of the waterline to the end of the beach is several hundred feet at least. It’s the perfect kind of beach to stroll along with almost no one out and a full moon shining brightly.

We smoke one of the joints and get so high it’s hard to walk straight. This is also likely because of our mojito legs. It is also because of the pull of the water against the sand. Even though the beach is super long, the water creeps up very far in the high tide. As it retracts, it pulls the sand out from under your feet. Not enough to suck you up into the sea or anything, the water is only ankle to shin high. Just enough to make a very high and drunk person feel like their life is in danger in less water than a kiddy pool.

On our walk back, a man is swinging on the beach playground, wearing all black in a hoodie (it wasn’t cold out). With no one else on the beach and the nearest people very far away, we prepare to fight to the death.

Needless to say, this man never left the swing. We did not have to fight anything but our own paranoia.

Back in the hotel lobby, another “Heyyyyy!”, and we’re up in the room ready to crash before our flight the next day.

I suppose most people wouldn’t have ended up with such a great experience given these same circumstances, not because they lack something we don’t, or because we’re special and super cool (although, obvs, we are), but because it’s so against our wiring to constantly say “yes” to things as they present themselves.

I’m sure there are plenty of normies that would have gotten a different hotel room once they realized it was a gay hotel, whether they’re homophobic explicitly or implicitly. That’s a real shame. But you know that is the case with cis het people, so much so that both the guests and the clerks were quite surprised that we were staying there and having such a great time. It was obviously a rare occasion.

Aside from the bigoted, plenty more people might have just opted for the direct flight home since it cost the same thing as extending their trip one more night. Most that opted for the extra night certainly wouldn’t have ended up with a sack of great weed to enjoy for the night and following morning.

My point in this is that the only difference between us having this adventure and those that would not is merely saying “Yes!” to options presented, and rolling with the flow. Maybe a little gumption to feel confident enough to ask a waitress for weed in the south, a dash of white privilege to boot.

More than anything, don’t let fear or discomfort stop you from trying and experiencing things. That was the lesson we learned from our crazy night in Miami.