Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The Bane of my Existance

This blog post has absolutely nothing to do with writing, but I needed an outlet to vent are you are the lucky chosen ones. So as many of you already know I live on Cape Cod where sun, sand, and some of the east coast’s best beaches attract hundreds of thousands of tourists each weekend. Although our community’s economy is dependent on these weekend imports, mine is not, and thus I find them a constant source of aggravation.


 Us Cape Coders love our rotaries, or more formally known as round-a-bouts. They are an effective way to manage traffic flow and alleviate the need for long back-ups at red lights. These large circular movers of traffic seem to stump those not from these waters. First off, yield means to progress slowly . . . cautiously into the traffic circle. Under no circumstances does it mean you should jam on your breaks and wait for a green single that will ever appear. Speaking of brakes, if you happen to miss you exit of the rotary, don’t ever . . . EVER stop and attempt to back up. For God’s sake it is a circle, simply progress around it again until the exit re-appears!

I live on Cape Cod simply because I love the water and for no other reason. With that love comes a host of water toys, many of which need to be launched at the public boat ramp.  The town graciously supplies you with a dock to tie up to for the brief (and I do mean brief) moments it takes to park your car. So here is a shout out to the random guy from Ohio who backed his boat down the public ramp and tied up to the dock, then proceeded to pull out a cooler and fix himself a sandwich. I held onto my Northeastern patience as long as I could (a whopping three minutes) before I kindly asked him to move. He replied with a gentle, In a minute Darlin’  Needless to say I unleashed my own brand of New England sarcasm on him – the kind that had even the burly local fisherman next to me howling in laughter.

Contrary to popular tourist belief, the little sticks floating in the middle of the bay were not place there as a courtesy to out-of-town boaters. They are private mooring, paid for and maintained by locals like me. So next time I pull into Lewis Bay with a boat full of strippers I will not call the Harbor Master and ask him to ticket you. I will not call the Yacht club and ask them to find you a different transient mooring. Although tempted, I will not even cut your boat lose and let if float back to Delaware. I will climb aboard you vessel, make myself a cocktail, and wait until you return, at which point I will not so eloquently school you on whose mooring this really is.

Thanks for listening to me gripe and do know that usually we locals are more then happy to have you visit. It was just a bad weekend for me.  But be forewarned, this is what you have to look forward to when you and a couple other thousand people decide to leave – Twenty miles and three hours of bridge traffic! But just for you, my writing friends, I will give you a map of the back roads so you can avoid the delays


6 comments:

  1. This was too funny (in a OMG I would scream kind of way).

    I do hate roundabouts though. Despise them. And we have some in town and I avoid them at all costs. Nobody knows how to drive in them, and it's impossible to tell when people are turning off because turn signals are useless when all the turns are that close together. And all it takes is one idiot to mess up the whole system. (and that's my little rant of the day)

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  2. That's great. I totally sympathize. My town only has one roundabout and it's in the center of teh citynear one of the universitys. There are so many road signs in that vicinity (to make sure none of the things that happened to you happen, I suppose) that you're almost obliged to drive 20 miles an hour to make sure you aren't doing anything wrong.

    When I was in Kuwait I got my first taste of a real roundabout. There were 6 lanes! It made me sick. Fortunately I was a passenger and not a driver, because in addition to everyone driving way to fast (We're talking no less than 150 KM an hour) no one, and I mean no one, payed any mind to the lanes. I almost faitned.

    I live in a corner of the state that is surrounded by 3 lake communities, and we, too are completely overrun (and dependent) on tourism. Have you ever heard of Bass Pro? The biggest one is in my hometown. I don't own a boat personally, but every time I am at the lake, or driving past Bass Pro, it seems like I have to fight the boat traffic tooth and nail.

    I missed the memo that owning a boat means you can take over whatever road, park drive or dock you're on. You must have missed it too, Trisha.

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  3. I don't like Round-a-bouts. I think a 4 way stop sign accomplishes the same thing w/o all the confusion.

    I can appreciate your rant, I allow myself a rant every Thursday on my blog.

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  4. Not a roundabout kind of gal! We had one show up in my hometown back in Canada and everyone stood at their stop for about ten minutes wondering what to do. Actually, now that I think of it, it was rather funny...

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  5. I know your pain. I lived in a beach town and loathed the summer tourists who plugged up the streets and the two lane roads. Not THAT bad, but yeah...now I am that tourist haha

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  6. Oooh, Trisha this post reminds me of our annoyance sometimes with living near Wrigley Field. On one hand, it's cool and historic, on the other hand, when it's swarmed it's nuts and makes our traffic and parking impossible!!

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