Tourists and Other hazards to our Sanity

Hi there. You may not know me. I'm a "local". I live, work, shop, and worship in the city you come to for vacation. Yes, I know that this is your "special place" and you're on "leisure time", but I'm not. I live here at the beach, and I have to get to work. Nothing "magical" about this place to me, except that from March to October we get swamped with incompetant morons who left their common sence and driving skills at home, but made sure to pack an extra sense of entitlement. For those of you coming to the beach this summer, I have a few tips:

1. Read a map before you come. Have a general idea of the layout of the city you're going to before you come. I do it every time I go on vacation. It keeps me from getting lost as often, and from driving down the road in the fast lane going 15 miles under the speed limit trying to read all the roadsigns. Seriously people, if you suddenly see the road you're supposed to turn off of 2 lanes over......don't slam on brakes, jerk the car accross multiple lanes of trafic and come to a complete stop before you turn. Just pass it, make a U-turn when you can, and try again. The entire town isn't on vacation. A big reason the traffic here is bad is because of you lot of fools.

2. Stop asking locals "what's good here?". When you're in line at a restaurant and don't know what you want, don't hold up everybody else while you stand there life a freshly caught bass, mouth agape and eyes wide staring at a menu. Get out of the way. Stand off to the side. You've been in line 10 minutes, you should have looked at the menu on the wall before now.

3. Don't ask us where to eat. When you ask a local "what's good to eat around here", the locals (at least me and the Lemur Queen) are going to lie our asses off. Why? We don't want you in our restaurants. That's where WE eat. Where local's go, and we don't want you to mess it up. There's a little italian place that we both LOVE that's a hole in the wall but has melt-in-your-mouth dishes and an increadable waitstaff (that we tip 20%+ every time), there's a authentic german place with rockin' wursts and great beer, and there's a local funky burrito restaurant where all the cool alternative kids work where you can get a giant burrito called the "double bypass". All those places are for locals. If you find them it's purely by accident, because when you ask us "what's good", we're going to say "Big Daddy's Crap Shack! It's right by the beach and it's great and prices aren't bad!". Why are we doing this? Because you are foisting yourself on us and as punishment we're going to try to make you eat only with other tourists at the nastiest, overcrowded, overpriced place we can. Why? Because we hate you.

4. Wear some freaking clothes. I mean seriously, people. The whole town isn't a beach. If you're not at the beach, don't just wear shorts and a bathing suit top. Wear a shirt. Change out of your bathing suit. Wear real clothes. Would you like some random fat guy or hefty chick to come wobbling into the Chik-fil-A with their flubber hanging out in YOUR town? Do you know what it's like to sit in a booth after the guy with the soggy swim trunks sat there? EW!

5. While we're on the clothes topic, let's talk about body types and appropriateness. Lemur Queen is pretty, fit and slim. She can do 150 pushups at a whack, and has six pack abs. She can wear a two piece. YOU are 5'1" and over 200 lbs. YOU do not need to wear a two piece. YOU sure as hell don't need to be wearing a bikini. Guys, a word for a minute. Those european speedos you're wearing? They suck. And those board shorts that you're sagging to the point of almost showing your Kibbles'n'bits? They suck. Pull up your pants and wear something substantial enough to NOT be swallowed by a fat roll. I'm a fat guy. I know what it like to go to a beach and have Greenpeace try to roll me back into the surf every time I come out of the water for a drink. My name is Fat Rock for a reason. I can wear clothes that cover. So can you.

So, to all you tourists out there, please read my rules and live by them. And if you can't do that.....please get out of my town.

Fat Rock.