Dexter’s apartment

So … yeah … I admit it: I hauled my daughter all around Miami just to find the apartment of a fictional serial killer/cop.

Should I expect to pay for a lifetime of therapy?

Maybe.

Was it worth it?

No.

Not really.

My overall impression of Miami was that the beach was really pretty but that the rest of the city was an endless suck hole of pot-holed, bedraggled strips jangling with flea bag motels, puppy mills, rundown chain stores and mind-bogglingly sticky heat. And we drove through all of it in search of one crappy little apartment we couldn’t even really see.

Good times.

I’m a big fan of the Dexter series on Showtime, and I was excited to go check out his waterfront art deco pad. I saw on the map that it didn’t seem all too far from our downtown hotel — maybe a 20-minute drive, depending on traffic. But I made the mistake of looping the visit in with a trip to the beach, meaning we had to sit in traffic for what seemed like hours.

“Where are we going again?” the kid would ask every now and then.

“To see a neat apartment.”

“Seriously?”

I’d always mocked the tourists I see in San Francisco out searching for the house featured in Mrs. Doubtfire. It’s a movie, people. Get over it. But there must be some pop culture black hole that sucks you into seeing these places, as if merely laying eyes upon them will make all the mindless nighttime entertainment more important somehow. I don’t know. I just knew I wanted to see it.

But when we finally arrived, it was impossible to see the actual apartment itself. I didn’t want to go hopping over fences or bothering neighbors, so I had to settle for a crappy photo from the front and another from the side — one that would show, perhaps, the actual apartment if not for a fence and some trees.

Bummer.

The funny thing is I noticed two women on scooters zipping around, craning their necks this way and that while checking iPhones.

I knew just what they were after.

I pointed out the address to my fellow TV nerds and we laughed about what a lame way it was to spend an afternoon. Then they noticed Emme in the back of the car and probably thought, “That’s beyond lame, dude. That’s cruel.”

But the good news is we still had time to go find Michael Westin’s flat from Burn Notice. And then that neat condo building with a hole in it — the one featured in the intro to Miami Vice.

I only wish that was a joke …