The Villages...Florida's Friendliest Hometown!

Ok, this is where I live...The Villages. Make sure your speakers are on to get the full effect...then, hit the little speaker icon in the top/middle of the page...scaaaaaaary, am I right?!

I can't believe I haven't really written an actual post about it (it=The Villages) yet. It's just that it's like, a big, huge undertaking to depict it accurately, and I've always been too lazy and found writing about crackheads to be exponentially easier.

Soooooo, here goes...The Villages is an "active adult" retirement community in central Florida...about an hour north of Orlando. Basically, it's in the middle of the sticks. The outskirts of The Villages (a.k.a. the bubble) are scary and look like a scene out of the movie "Deliverance"...i.e. a lot of run-down trailers and toothless rednecks that work minimum wage jobs, yet somehow find a plethora of money to spend on cigarettes. I guess it evens out somewhere along the way when you don't spend a dime on dental care (?). Anyway, I'm being mean and spoiled, but I'm just trying to set the scene accurately for ya'll (plus, it's not like any of these aforementioned rednecks would be reading my post anyway and getting annoyed because a) I'm not sure they can read and b) I'm certain they don't own computers...ok, sorry again, too much damn Tosh...stupid Daniel! I used to be a nice person).

The best way to summarize The Villages is that it's a Disney World for adults/seniors. It's a man made wonderland/paradise/utopia that is strictly controlled, kept perfectly safe, clean, Republican (vote for Romney! the fact that he's Mormon isn't frightening at all), mostly white, religioned-up like whoa, manicured, watered, flowered, palm treed, etc. How does it stay this nice? Mexicans, of course! I'm not even being stereotypical...it's completely true. They do a bang up job.

Golf cart paths line every street, and I believe the stats are that for all the golf carts here, it means that every household has an average of one or more golf carts. Because sometimes you need two. Most households have one regular car and one golf cart. Oh, and they have a separate mini golf cart garage in many cases.

The healthcare is excellent. Median income is about $80K per year during retirement. People wave happily, and when you accidentally cut them off in the grocery store line because YOU have somewhere to be, they say things like "It's ok, I've got more time than money." Little dogs are everywhere; some even in pink baby carriages. Now, I'm all about little dogs, but baby carriages? Don't dogs like walking? There's been a handful of times I'm expecting to see a baby and then a Maltese pokes its little pony-tailed head up instead. Ah yes, the common, every day occurences here that become "normal" are so far from it everywhere else. I should get a picture of it one of these days. It's just that one doesn't usually think to take a picture of a Maltese in a baby carriage until it's too late. Oh, and, just about every day while walking the dogs I hear, "Who's walking who?" It's a hilarious joke that never gets old.

Bonus: If you like hearing the song "Bad Bad Leroy Brown" on pretty much an endless loop ((on the ever popular Villages AM (I can't emphasize that enough, so I've bolded, underlined, and italicized it) radio station)), then you'll love it here. If that song isn't ringing any bells for you, thank your lucky stars, and then check it out here.

The Villages, like the name implies, is divided up into a bunch of different villages (clusters of houses and neighborhoods) with different names. For example, we live in the "Virginia Trace" village, whatever that means. Each village also usually has its own pool, mailbox station, shuffleboard, and pickleball courts, etc. There are also crazily decorated huge recreation centers here that each have their own theme. It's really all quite a sight to be seen. There's over 2,000 clubs you can join here depending on what you like to do...I just hope you're a fan of knitting, bingo, or backgammon.

Then, there are two big town centers...Sumter Square and Spanish Springs (a 3rd one is being built). They each have a bunch of different stores, restaurants, bars and a big band stand in the middle. Live music (don't get excited - it's 50's music 90% of the time) is played 364 days a year. And, there is a little alcohol/bar type booth on each corner (that's right - 4 of them at each square!) where you can get 2 for 1 drinks. Every day is a weekend because most people are either retired or on vacation. Everyone is drinking by like 4pm, easily. It's like a step away from one astronomically large AA meeting. It's pretty much like being on vacation 100% of the time...except that I ordinarily wouldn't freely choose to vacation at a place with such an inordinate amount of seniors.

There was a "ladies night" I went to recently at this particular restaurant. Needless to say, there weren't many ladies there (mostly sketchy men waiting for the ladies to show up), but it didn't matter because regular sized glasses of wine were 50 cents. That's right. Insane in the membrane! Even when it's not actually happy hour at most restaurants, they say it's happy hour all day anyway, and there are always drink specials. The seniors here are so catered to, it's ridic.

If I were retired, I wouldn't want to live anywhere else. There'd be absolutely no reason not to live here. You feel safe, everyone is your age, everything is geared toward you and your outdated tastes, etc. At my age, it's quite a different story though, obviously, ha.

Ok, that was quite a rambling. If this were an essay on The Villages, I'd probably go back and make some edits to make the whole thing flow better and whatnot, but I don't really care yo. You get the gist of what this place is like. And anyway, you can't quite take it all in anyway until you visit here...which I'm sure you are all planning to do in the very near future. It's one of those things you gotta see to believe. And when you do, you'll rub your eyes in wonder and laugh about how amazing it is that a place like this exists. Just don't ever leave after you get here. Big mistake. The outside world looks really crummy, and you realize there is actually garbage (what?!), and then your palms will start to sweat. Who says crummy? Awful.

Ok, it's after 4:30pm on a Friday, and I haven't started drinking yet, so I have to go! Time to put on my sparkly visor and hit the town...until at least 8:30pm. Gotta head home before the mass exodus at 9pm.

P.S. My use of parentheses is a little outlandish, and I apologize.