Damned Inconsiderate

It's time again for another ranting post about vacationers. 

I live in a resort area.  And yeah, we kind of knew what we were getting into when we moved here.  Summers and the holidays they envelop mean extra people in the neighborhood, extra traffic on the road, and a decrease in common courtesy.  We were not prepared for it to be this bad, though.

I posed the question yesterday to a few locals while I was out and about: Why are people on vacation so damned inconsiderate?  No one knew, but they all agreed.

Oh, I'm sure vacationers lovely at their permanent homes.  They probably pick up after themselves and are respectful of their neighbors' need for sleep.  They probably don't drive like freakin' maniacs and are polite in their local stores.  Their dogs are on leashes and they don't stop to stare at their neighbors' homes/yards or in their neighbors' windows.  They might even drive a little slower in their own home places*.  (Maybe not, but I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt.)

But they go on vacation and they lose all sense of decorum and civility. 

My poor gals at the smoke shop/bait store/booze emporium looked positively frazzled yesterday.  They said they'd been slammed for days.  As I drove up, a gaggle of women were loading cases of beer and bags of ice into their pickup.  Eight cases of beer and twelve bags of ice.  And just before they left, one ran back inside to make sure the place would be open on the 4th.  Two days later.  Two days, people.  192 cans of beer in two days.  All I can hope is that they weren't bringing that party anywhere near me. 

And this particular holiday comes with sound effects.  Large tents have sprung up along the highways nearest the towns, proclaiming they have the loudest and biggest fireworks ever.  :insert Lurch groan:    I was sitting in my home Sunday night, trying to enjoy Endeavour on Masterpiece, when the evening's warzone ensued.  They probably didn't even consider that some people still had to get up and work on Monday.  Nope, not a whit.  And I even said it out loud when a golf cart full of whoopers and hollerers drove by.  "Hey, some of us have to work tomorrow!" 

At their respective nest holes, wherever they may be, the vacation birds are probably silent on Sunday nights.  Because that's how civilized people behave.  But, like I said, they come here and lose their everlovin' minds. 

It doesn't help that Independence Day falls mid-week this year.  So, there are 'holiday weekends' on either side of the actual holiday.  Twice the partying for the same price, I guess.  Woohoo.

Anyway, I beg you, if you go on vacation reserve at least a tiny part of your brain for thinking about the people around you.  You can have fun without being, as my favorite smoke shop worker put it, a-holes. 

*Holy shit, people, are you trying to vacation at the speed of light, or what?  "Vacation faster, vacation harder"?  Slow down and enjoy the view, for petesakes.