Blogs

My daughter and I flew in from our separate cities to Miami last weekend to celebrate her birthday.

My first clue that I was going to be even less "South Beachish" than previously feared came when my cabdriver asked, "Are you here for music festival?"

One look at me should have been enough to indicate that, unless it was Captain and Tennille headlining, I was not here for the music festival.

"No, but what festival?" I asked casually while fighting a rising panic.

"Is Ultra! Most famous techno DJ festival in world!"

I don't get out much, but as the mother of one person who has been a teen and another person who still is a teen, I know what techno music is. Let me do my on-paper imitation now: "Unsuh, unsuh, beep, beep, zip, zeeep, unsuh, zeep, unsuh, yeep." But scream that really, really loudly. And scratch your fingernails against a chalkboard. Please also grab a dentist drill and just pulsate the on/off button. That, my friends, is what techno music sounds like to me.

At the hotel, the check-in person gingerly offered me a letter.

"We're giving this to all our guests. You probably know it's "Ultra" this weekend and noise ordinances are lifted in the city of Miami. The hotel can't control the many DJ events occurring all around the hotel." Wanting to be thought of as a good sport, I assured her that I knew the hotel could only control its own grounds. But I was praying that wasn't really true.

My daughter didn't arrive for a few hours, so I went up to the room. Could it be my imagination or was there also a gathering of drum circle instructors staying at the hotel? The walls of the room seemed to swell and retract on their own. Just like the blood vessels in my brain. I stepped out onto the small balcony. Big mistake. I thought about immediately self-reporting to Dateline NBC's "To Catch a Predator," because I was staring onto a rooftop of a neighboring hotel that was having a roof-top afternoon dance party. Everyone appeared to be very young and very much in their underwear. I went back into the room and shut the curtains.

I called the front desk. I won't bore you with the entire contents of the conversation but the words "mom, Midwest, birthday, migraine" and "quieter room" were used.

Props (look at me with the terms!) to the hotel for helping me move to an interior facing room. Oh this one still pulsed, too. But more gently, and the dentist drill could not be heard.

My daughter arrived and practically fell into the room.

"Oh Mom, I'm so sorry! It's Ultra. I had no idea. Some friends told me that it was in Miami this weekend. They said, 'Your poor mom.'"

Again, in the spirit of her birthday weekend, and wanting to rise to the (loud) occasion, I hugged her and assured her it would be fine. And it was.

I got to see women in their bathing suits and high heels having dinner at a nice restaurant. I got to see every color of pastel pork pie hat ever made. I got to hear what sounded like a remix of ACDC's Thunderstruck, the national anthem, and the time I got the basement pipes rotored.

You might say it was an ultra unusual weekend.

- Lucia Paul

Lucia Paul's humor writing includes an award-winning sitcom script and essays that have appeared in numerous publications. Her parody, 50 Shades of Flannel, earned a cult following, and was an Entertainment Weekly online Editor's Pick in 2012. She has been a regular humor contributor to MORE magazine's online edition, writing on topics ranging from the financial crisis to parenting teens. She is a contributor to two Not Your Mother's Book titles: NYMB…on Home Improvement (2013) and NYMB …on Moms (June 2014). She blogs at dysfunctionalscrapbooking.blogspot.com.