Se7en's granny driver story inspired me. Today I'm going to tell you about FT's. Aka fucking tourists. I live in the Lake of the Ozarks in MO. That's a good descriptor, everyone knows what general area that is, but it still doesn't pinpoint me. We are a tourist area. We have 2 different kinds of FT's. One kind is the ones who come down in the summer for us locals to wait on hand and foot. The other kind are the ones who used to be the other kind, but loved it so much they moved here from, mostly, CA either retired or to open a business.
So around April, they start coming down here in droves. Mostly these ones are for Kansas City or St. Louis. Then comes Memorial Day. At that point, no local would be caught dead anywhere near a store between Thursday night and Monday afternoon. In order to not wait in line at a store for an hour or so, you can only shop on Tuesday or Wednesday. Even if it's very sunny and hot. Not all the FT's play on the lake. If it's raining? we don't leave our houses unless it's for work. If it's raining, you leave your house for work an hour earlier than you normally do and hope you aren't late. Between memorial day and labor day, when trying to get to work, you have to leave an hour early than normal (winter normal). Basically a 20 minute drive will translate to an hour or so. Rain, a 20 minute drive translates to, if you work in a restaraunt, you have to be at work an hour earlier than normal and you leave 2 hours earlier than normal.
Let's describe the roads here. Curves. Hills. Short, maybe 50 feet, straight stretches for us to try to pass the idiots. There is a lake road about every 20 feet here every where you go. There are no shoulders on the road, if you go off it, you roll down a hill. There are 2 bridges on my side. One is 2 lane, the other is 4 lane. By 2 lane, I mean that one lane is cars going north, the other is cars going south; opposite directions. Our roads are 2 lane until Osage Beach. Everyone that knows Lake of the Ozarks, knows Osage Beach, and no, I don't live that close to it. Then they are 4 lane. Our bridges have very wide shoulders with short barriers on the sides. Apparently this is scary. You could fit a whole car on the shoulder on the bridges, without any other vehicles able to hit it and it's scary! Idiots!
So, this is how the FT's drive. When they see a curve they hit the brakes. When they are going around a curve, they ride the brakes. When they see a hill, they hit the brakes. When they drive up a hill they ride the brakes. When they drive down the hill they are pretty much putting the brakes to the floor. When they see a lake road they hit the brakes. They ride the brakes up until they actually pass the lake road sign. You can tell who is looking for a certain road. Their blinkers and brakes go on every time the so much as see a lake road. The roads here, until town are 55mph. They drive 20 to 35mph. You know, that would be ok, but those idiots when you try to pass them speed up so you can't. Yes! Especially the drunk college kids. As busy as the roads are, it's rare to get to pass these people. Also, they fluctuate how fast they go. So you drive along the road and have to hit your brakes, a lot. You gauge how fast they are going and leave a little distance between then all of a sudden they slam the brakes and you have to too. Yeah, been a few fender benders.
FT's include: Old people, Middle age people, College kids. They also include people who have moved here, been here for years and are still braking for everything. They also expect us to wait on them hand and foot, and now! Right fucking now! No matter how many people are in front of them in line, or at tables, it's right now. You can be sat 4 tables of 4 people apiece, all at the same time, and invariably one of them will bitch that you didn't get there soon enough. They will wait for hours, I said hours!, to get a table at a restaraunt. Then their food can't come fast enough. I've been waiting 5 minutes, my food should be here now. They will wait for hours and then whine that they had to wait that long. Wait a minute! You should have gone to the damn grocery store and got dinner and fixed it your own damn self if you didn't want to wait. Down here, even the crappiest waitress can make $400 in a night. That's about 4 or 5 hours. The good ones, my sister in law is one, can make a grand, yes, that's $1000. During the summer is good money. Winter comes and over half of our population is laid off. No FT's to waste their money. End of summer, many businesses have FT parties. They advertise it, the tourists think great! They aren't invited, they've all gone home. We throw parties because our headache, for a while, is over.
Because we are a tourist area, there aren't many high paying jobs to be found. And if there are, they want a resume and that piece of paper that said you had extra schooling. Doesn't matter how fast you learn. Doesn't matter that they still have to train the people with the paper. Leave and go somewhere else you say? Well, give me the money to move and I will. Yeah, we make good money in summer, but we have to save it to get by in winter.
Yeah, we do have 'little old lady' drivers. But to us it's no different than the FT's. We have drunk drivers, no different than the FT's. In summer time, we don't go anywhere after midnight, unless it's home from work. If we go to a party, we stay not go home. It's too dangerous to drive late at night. The FT's are drunk and drive that way. They do it on the lake at night too. There are drownings every year. Because they were drunk on the lake. I don't feel bad for them. They did something really stupid and paid dearly for it. Many locals get a designated driver, even for their boats. My reaction is, some idiot got themselves killed again. I feel bad for their families. Water patrol can't keep up with them all. Some people actuall swim in our lake. Let me tell you, that's just nasty. If you go swimming here, you have to take a shower afterwards. You come out and are covered in dirt. You can see it caught in the little hairs that even women have. Normally you can't see the hairs that women have all over their bodies. When they swim in the lake, you get to see it. You can get a yeast infection from swimming in our lake. Because the FT's seem to think it's ok to dump their trash, tires, sewage from their rented house boats into our lake. If you choose to swim in our lake, you are just asking for trouble. It's amazing, the FT's know it and just don't care.
Well, that's all for know. Have a fun Friday! |