The city of Weston sits just west of Ft.Lauderdale and has been recently named the most boring city in the U.S. I don’t know who named it such, or if it is such a recent prize that I was not able to find that fact anywhere on the internet. With a population just over 60,000, it sits on 27 square miles of housing, golf courses, bike paths and hiking trails.
The first time I ever visited Weston I had not noticed much about it. It was an oversized subdivision with little to the imagination. The typical cookie cutter homes that sat on perfectly manicured lawns didn’t really stimulate any of my senses. More recently I had the opportunity to get a closer look. My daughter has since moved to Weston and it gave me the opportunity to get a personal taste of a neighborhood which is so well-known as “the place” to live.
Upon my first driving in, as I said before, it was very boring, well landscaped and difficult to tell where you were at any given time. It all looked the same to me. One street was the same as any other. It is miles away from any shopping and my daughter has to drive eight minutes just to get out of her subdivision and to a strip plaza to buy anything of convenience. Actually, I don’t think the word convenience is used at all around there. I spent some time going out to eat, shopping and with their new law on the books we couldn’t go to a club or a skating ring. Yes clubs and skating rings are considered places that promote crime, according to the city who has decided that they don’t want that kind in their hood.
The suffix “ize” means to render or make. For example Louis Pasteur, known for inventing a method for stopping wine and milk from causing sickness, which came to be called pasteurized. Homogenized is another term for what we do to milk in order for it to become an emulsion. John the Baptist cleansed people of their sins in water, which came to be known as baptized. To make crystal would be to crystallize. To make familiar is familiarize. To make sterile is to sterilize. To incite terror would be to terrorize.
Why the language lesson? Well as I walked around Weston I felt like there had been a “Westonized” process or method that made them all the same. I realized that everyone had glowing white teeth, perfect bodies, straight hair, very expensive cars and of course, designer clothes. Now don’t get me wrong, walking around a city where everyone is perfectly beautiful couldn’t be all bad. It’s just that it made me feel like a toothless hillbilly from a mountainous region. Here I was with my flat chest, curly hair and a slight pouch for abs. I was probably wearing a pair of shorts bought at Walmart and my flip flops from Payless. I had no jewelry on and my Chevy Cobalt was not getting any attention. Is it possible that this community attracts only the beautiful? I asked myself how all the perfect people could live in the same 27 mile radius. Then it dawned on me. Once I discovered the many offices that perform plastic surgery in Weston. God didn’t make them perfect so they went to the plastic surgeon.
At first I wished that I had the money to get the surgery that made them so beautiful, but then I suddenly felt okay with the way that I am. I’m not looking for a mate and I’m especially not looking for a mate that needs my boobs to be a different size.
I have watched as my daughter has evolved and now fits in with this crowd. I have come to call this “Westonized.” Everyone in Weston must look the same. The houses do, the streets do and the people do. It’s the “Stepford” of our time. I am of course very proud of my daughter for setting her standard so high, but for me, I like my “anyville.” I’ll stay here, where everyone fits in, even the misfits.