a gentle directive

go home.

seriously, all you folks with non-MA or NH license plates, just stop coming up here. i've never understood this whole weekend warrior, minivan full o'kids roadtrip thing. from your license plates i see you live in CT or RI most of the year. do you know how many people pay top dollar to stay at your overpriced B&Bs and get a lousy cup o'chowda, or drop money at your ikea, or go see some tall ships? i bet you curse at them. you live in states with some of the nicest shorelines, revered throughout the nation! fucking stay there already!

and seriously, you already live in an area of the country with deciduous trees! what makes our foliage so damn special? and must you bleating sheep all clog the roadways on the same weekend? do you always do what everyone else does when they do it? you might think it's normal because you have company, and all the local accomodations expect you each year, and you take it up the rear in columbus day weekend rate premiums. i assure you, the normal people were all heading north to go HOME after a long day of WORK. you're not normal, you're crazy; and all your brethren are crazy too.

so next time you want to leave your home in a posh new england state, a great place to live other than tourist season (do you taste the irony yet?), and head northbound on a friday evening, and maybe cause a 2-hour delay because you dropped some of your family's matched set of bicycles all over 495 because you are an incompetent yuppie, think twice about why you live where you do and why you feel the need to get away from it. maybe it's time for a change.

but a small note of thanks to the shiny hummer H2 with two brand new twin kayaks on its thule roof rack; i appreciate that you didn't take the tags off your kayaks, because it gave me something to read while i sat in traffic. kudos.

to anyone who regularly travels, north or south, on these predetermined long weekends with all your lifestyle trappings to have a 'getaway': if you have the money to afford your SUV, and all your gear, and your house in groton, but you just can't stay away from the borders of another state, MAYBE YOU SHOULD MOVE. why not live where you'd most like to be, rather than spend half your life trying to get there?