Six more weeks of…

Tourists.  Gotta love South Florida weather forecasts.  This morning’s spin on Groundhog Day fit right in with what I had planned to write about next.

I have embraced the crankiness of locals.  The relative calm of uncrowded roads and stores starts to become disrupted a little around Thanksgiving and Hell Week hits with Christmas/New Year. Hurricane season starts looking inviting around now.  It’s not so much the fact that people like coming here.  That’s how I ended up choosing to live here (because of the weather, certainly not the crazy shit politics of greater Florida).  Tourism does fuel the economy of the area. It’s just that a lot of the people who invade this time of year act like jerks.

Now I get why, at one time, bumper stickers with “Welcome to Florida, Now Go Home” and, “If It’s Snowbird Season, Why Can’t We Kill Them” were popular at one time.  It’s not that we’re mean people, it’s that:

1. You think it’s cool to be loud everywhere.  This includes encouraging your grandchild to loudly fake sneeze over and over again at the condo pool.  Great, you’re here from Canada and they’re visiting you from who knows where.  It’s not cute.  It’s annoying.
2. You act like a stranded baby seal on an ice floe in the grocery store.  You are in America.  The aisles are labeled.  Yeah, maybe you’re mesmerized by the additional Goya food products or local beers that you don’t have in Oshkosh.  Find your food and get out of my way.
3. You need to socialize with someone you haven’t seen since last year, someone you just met when out drinking last night, or just someone who will listen to you in produce, in front of the meat counter, in frozen foods, or wherever the hell I need to get to at the moment.  I don’t care what kind of amazing store you were in in Arizona where you could get a haircut, buy flowers, and grocery shop (an actual conversation between two old guys blocking not only produce, but one frozen food section at Publix this past week).  Thanks for eventually moving far enough apart to let at least one cart through.
4. You have no driving skills.  Come on.  There’s not even any ice here.  The speed limit is 45 mph in most places for a reason.  People like you.  There’s one road going in and one going out.  It’s one lane in most places.  Don’t hesitate until the last second and then pull out in front of me.  And then not even pick up the pace.  Worse yet, go ahead and pass me and speed.  Chances are you’ll get pulled over and get a ticket.  And, yes, I will smile.

I could probably go on, but I won’t.  I do try to be nice.  I wore my “Be Kind” tie dye shirt on one of my last grocery visits to try to help my attitude.  It didn’t work. All it did was make others think I was a tourist, too.