Don't feed the white plates

For the readers who don’t live in this small tourist town, the white plates are the license plates, tourists from Texas. They have arrived in our town en masse. Not unwelcome. This is a tourist town, and we need the tourists for our town to thrive.

There are some behaviors that we are concerned about. They tend to drive at two speeds. One, is full stop, as in, stop to take a picture of one small mangy looking deer, and take up both lanes. Meanwhile, right down the road is an entire herd of elk and horses they have yet to see. Parking is also highly creative.

The other speed is Mach 1, bumper to bumper, Nascar style. It’s ok, we know to watch you while you’re driving. You didn't mean to cut us off, because you didn’t know about the two turning lanes, or the lanes merging. We know it’s coming because we live here. You may not want to trade paint though. Your Mercedes SUV costs eight times my dirty old jeep.

One behavior that I am extremely baffled by, is parking your baby carriage right on the edge of the curb. Did you not notice the line of two ton vehicles within inches of your baby? Or the exhaust fumes with a straight shot down their throat. And what about the small walking children. Hold their f’ing hand. Don’t stand right on the edge. Don’t prove Darwin correct.

I try not to honk. Except when some of them decided to take a selfie in the middle of the crosswalk, while the light was changing.

Inevitably, trash increases exponentially when tourists arrive. I do not understand why people who obviously think that this place is beautiful, would throw trash at the waters edge of Grindstone, when there is literally a trash bin twenty yards away. Sometimes the bins are full. If you place trash on top, it will blow into the water. Maybe you could (gasp!) carry it out yourself.

I think we’ve had five fires since I moved here fifteen years ago? In case you haven’t noticed, we are a tinder box. Our sphincters have started tightening since the snow melted, and the wind has picked up. We have a near constant wind that acts like bellows to a fireplace. Please don’t leave your camp fire unattended. If you burn this place down, you may have to vacation up into northern New Mexico. They are not nearly as friendly as we are.

There is a noise ordinance, and no this isn’t Vegas. I actually have to get up at 5am to go to work tomorrow (yes this happens during the week). No you can’t scream drunken obscenities outside, at 2am. No, you’re not as cool as you think you are. Perhaps if this happens on the weekend, I need to tune my chain saw at 5am. The other local neighbors will be ok with me waking them up for some pay back.

Of course that previous part, where I mentioned that I have lived here fifteen years? That makes me a hypocrite. I look down my nose with smug indignation at these tourists. Don’t they know we live here? The people who have lived here their whole lives probably think the same of me. Since moving here, I am more self conscious of my behavior in other towns when we travel.