Tuesday, May 29, 2007

The scenery is here, wish you were beautiful

One of the things I noticed about the long Memorial Day weekend is how nice it is around here when one-third of the people are out of town. Traffic flows more easily, there are parking spaces, the lines are not as long and there is just a little more room to breathe.
In this part of the world, people started running for the beach at 3 o'clock on Friday afternoon and didn't come back until late in the day on Monday. It was a glorious weekend without the congestion that life in the suburbs brings. I don't know exactly where they go, and frankly I don't care. As long as there is more available space for me and the others who are left here, I'm all for it.
JERRY: No, wait a minute, Newman! You can't let this dream die. You moving away is my dream too!
NEWMAN: What are you proposing?
JERRY: Whatever it takes, for as long as it takes me, wherever it takes me as long as it takes you away from me!
I have this odd image in my head of this great weight being dropped on the shore towns as the rush of shoobies flows in. If I lived in one of those towns, I would start popping the darvocet's on Thursday to build up my resistance. The shore rush is an annual event, and every year there are more people jamming the same roads they jammed ten years ago, making each year's traffic onslaught worse than the previous one.
Monday night's news was full of helicopter shots of jammed bridges, roads and tunnels with all the people who couldn't wait to get the Hell out of here, coming back. This morning, the roads were jammed again. Cars were backed up for 6 miles on their way to Philadelphia to start their short work week before they head off to the shore again on Friday afternoon. Fortunately for me, I go the opposite direction. There's a metaphor there, somewhere I think.
So welcome back, shoobies. I hate to tell you, folks; but it was better without you.

3 comments:

kimmyk said...

I drove home and man traffic sucked but it was moving so that was a bonus. I didn't get a ticket or anything....yeah!!

Ladyred said...

And now that I can call myself a local at the beach, I find myself trying to drive back to the beach from school/work/whatnot so I don't have to put up with that traffic. It's horrible. One way in/out, it is 55mph, yet you either have the Sunday drivers (when it's not Sunday) or the speed demons who are bound and determined to have an accident (and they most always do) that tie up damn traffic. I know there are people on vacation yadda yadda, but I simply want to get on and off this island in the fastest way possible. THis weekend was the starter of the accidents on the only road in/out. In the middle of the day. And all weekend there were ambulances blaring their sireenes. That's how I know it's the start of summer......
Holy shitake.....I haven't heard the term "shoobies" in soooooo long (I used to live in South Jersey).

Sparky Duck said...

damn, and i was always calling em shoebees.

I think it was brillant to close part of the AC expressway for construction on Monday night, gotta love NJ