Did I Ever Mention?

I hate crowds. Yet, somehow, Saturday I wound up at the
beach at the Hampton Seafood Festival, because someone else
simply HAD to be there.

The first thing to offend my senses was the shuttle bus from
the parking area to to the festival. Everyone on it seemed to
have been steeped in nicotine. Was there a huge human "meat
smoker" somewhere in the area? "Live Free or Die", as they
say in New Hampshire. Seems like 95% of the people are on
the "Die" fast-track. The worst smell, though, was patchouli.
That stuff goes straight to my pancreas. I smell it and
instantly want to vomit. I mentioned that to the person on
the bus with me, and instantly, the woman in the seat behind
me started kneeing the back of MY seat. The more we
discussed the smell, the more she banged the back of my seat.
I GET it lady -- you're the one who doused herself in patchouli
because you either killed your olfactory nerves with cigarette
smoke or you just don't like to bathe! I GET IT! In one of my
well-known Mr. Lugubrious moments of subtlety,
I turned around and said to the woman, "...and your knee in
my back isn't making the awful stink go away."
I'm a people person!

OK, here's the weird part: after we got to the beach, everything
still reeked of cigarettes....OUTSIDE! These people really are
taking their little "Free" and "Die" thing too far.

I was starving, so I hit the first stand I could find and ordered
a piece of "Cajuan Swordfish". Cajuan - must be a hybrid of
Cajun and Szechuan. Actually, it was just an overpriced hunk
of fish with some cayenne pepper on it, but I was hungry so it
worked.

Then another thought occurred to me: it's 90 degrees, bright sun,
and I haven't got a hat or any sunscreen because I had no
idea I was going to be at the beach today. I went into a couple of
stores. They wanted $12 for a single tube. Unbelievable. But, they
have a "captive" audience, don't they? I actually refused to buy it,
figuring if I walked a bit, some other store would be further away
from the beach and more desperate for business. After about five
stores I found a tube marked "$4.99" in a "50% off marked" bin.
Ha! $2.50! Take THAT, you beachfront robber-barons!!!

Freshly slathered and ready for baking, we headed over to the
bandstand to check out the music. The band this hour was sort of
a Jimmy Buffett clone band. They had the floral shirts, the hats,
the same guitars. They did a very unfortunate Bob Marley cover.
I couldn't help but think that Buffett's band must have done it or
they wouldn't have attempted it.
They had a scantily-clad woman who wasn't
doing anything other than shaking a percussive "egg". It was
fairly obvious why she'd been hired. Then, when they introduced
the bandmembers, they said, "From the New England Conservatory
of Music....." and the woman launched into an improvised operatic
vocal thing. Yeah, OK, you're a great opera singer. It really doesn't
work over a Caribbean beat. So this is where you end up if that
career in opera doesn't take off - a Buffett band?

Wow. Sorry. Meow.

Next band up was Afterburner, the US Air Force "Band of Liberty".
First of all, the BoL part has gotta go. As Moon Zappa would have
said, "Gag me." They were OK, I guess, but a couple of things
surprised me. They played everything too slowly. I would have
thought the military would have given them a better sense of
precision. The other thing was, they played "Pinball Wizard"
and the guitar player didn't play the right rhythm, instead
opting for a "disco porn movie" type guitar part. I mean,
come on, that guitar strum IS the riff in that song. If you
can't play it, DON'T cover the song. Who knows, maybe
the setlist comes from an office in Washington and the players
have no say in it. Hmm, what am I thinking? Of course they
don't - they're in the armed forces!

Walking around the various tents set up by local businesses,
I found one place called "Owl Beaver Traders". My mind
took off to its "special place" and I instantly envisioned a
guy who looked like Huggy Bear from the old Starsky &
Hutch show, standing there with a perch full of female
owls, yelling, "Come on, now, my owls are the best,
you need it, they got it!"

OK, well, I guess that's enough insight into the way my
mind works.

After the fireworks (a colossal waste of money, no matter
where they are), we fought our way back to the buses.
An amazing number of people seem to think the bus should
stop AT THEIR HOUSES instead of the bus stops.

Which reminded me again: I hate crowds - unless I'm in front
of them, and Security has tasers...hey, I need entertainment,
too, you know!