Apr. 21st, 2010 at 4:29 AM
From Wikipedia: "Patriots' Day (sometimes incorrectly punctuated Patriot's Day or Patriots' Day) is a civic holiday commemorating the anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, the first battles of the American Revolutionary War. It is observed in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and State of Maine (once part of Massachusetts), and is a public school observance day in Wisconsin. Observances and re-enactments of these first battles of the American Revolution occur annually at Lexington Green in Lexington, Massachusetts, (around 6am) and The Old North Bridge in Concord, Massachusetts (around 9am). In the morning, a mounted reenactor with State Police escort retraces Paul Revere's ride, calling out warnings the whole way. In recent years, however, Patriots' Day has been observed on the third Monday of every April, thereby providing the residents with a three-day holiday weekend."
I'd never even heard of Patriots' Day until recently, the day where, in reality, Massachusetts slyly extracts money from people's pockets with their sticky fingers to pay for the State Police to escort some looney-tune on a horse yelling ... what? "The British are coming the British are coming"? Oooh. There's some hot breaking scary news for you.
I'm thinking that if anyone yells "The British are coming!" at me, accompanied by the Massachusetts State Police, I'd probably say, "Oh, good! At least they're not as likely to shoot citizens as you are," (which is both true and probably the main reason the Brits lost the war) and then start looking up the road for Paul McCartney, but that's just me and a result of my brief but memorable encounters with the emotionally unstable North Andover police, who are just as liable to shoot you as to give you directions. The point is: only in Massachusetts would they elect to spend your tax money on a goofy reenactment that no one in the country gives a crap about, instead of something more useful like, oh I don't know ... putting up STREET SIGNS or fixing POTHOLES. You know, things that help to ensure residents don't die violent auto-related deaths on the state roadways.
But then, this is the same Massachusetts which has so far enriched everyone's lives by saddling them with taxes no other state imposes, forcing them to share geographical space with the seriously ugly high school skanks of South Hadley who tortured an Irish immigrant into suicide with their bullying, non-stop rain, non-existant summers, the stupid Red Sox sending low-flying jets over Cambridge and scaring the crap out of 9/11 survivors who don't need to have any more low-flying jets roaring overhead during their lifetimes and of course ... the Boston Marathon and Patriots' Day. Such a dumb idea that even volcanos in Iceland blew up in protest, thankfully preventing at least some of the expected influx of annoying people in running shoes from making it into Logan Airport.
But more to the point ... what always cracks me up about these misty-eyed celebrants spouting nonsense about "patriotism" are the very same people who, transported back to 1775, you would find busily humping the leg of the status-quo with religious fervor. Which is to say, they'd be sucking up to the British, calling Paul Revere a "hippie hooligan", what with his ponytail and granny glasses and all, and then calling the authorities to indignantly complain about his yelling at them from the road in the middle of the night. Trust me. The very same people.
So, that morning I was maneuvering my across the Boston version of the Indianapolis 500 Speedway - and by this I mean the entry road to the underground parking garage at North Station. Cars turn into the complex, gun their engines and try to run over as many commuters as they can, as they race for the down ramp to the parking garage at top speed. I'd actually made it past that gauntlet alive when I realized there were no Cambridge busses sitting there, waiting to be boarded. While this in itself isn't unusual - the noticeable absence or lateness of busses is standard fare for Boston public transportation - I also noticed that there wasn't any line of people staring morosely at the heavens or glaring at their watches and that was unusual. Only when I asked someone about it was I reminded of "Patriots' Day". I moaned. This meant that instead of the typical six to ten minute bus ride, I was now forced to wander the maze of the MBTA subway system. Back across the speedway and into North Station. Then to the Orange Line. Then to the Red Line. Then through the Marriott food court. Then another traffic gauntlet on Main Street. A 30 minute detour at least. Just so that some "American Patriots" could take a three-day weekend and feel unduly "patriotic" about themselves.
Which was bad enough. Ahhh, but at the end of the day I had to do the same thing in reverse. The only problem was: the infamous Patriots' Day Boston Marathon crowd was now dispersing. Boston - in its usual state of utter cluelessness and lack of foresight - thought letting loose the "Marathon People" into the mass of commuters battling their way home after a day's work was just a wicked swell idea. I thought it was rather sickening, myself.
You've never seen so many wrinkled knobby knees bow-leggedly hobbling down subway platforms, been confronted with so many unpleasantly-shaped people with saggy, cellulite enhanced butts crammed into skin tight bicycle shorts, or the stench of so many people after a 26-mile run for whom "deodorant" is another word for "*Duh* - what?" You've never heard so many mothers deciding that this was the perfect moment to bark everyone's shins with baby strollers, by shoving them into packed subway cars, or shrill women on cell phones braying like donkeys all at the same time, all shrieking variations on the same sad narcissistic theme,
"I saw you Mahvin! Didn't you see me wave at you? Didn't you SEE me, Mahvin? I sweah, I waved at you Mahvin! I was at mile 10 and a half, Mahvin! Didn't you see me wave at you? How could you not see me waving at you, Mahvin?"
I'm sure I wasn't the only commuter who wanted to grab the phone out of her hand and yell, "Just say you SAW the bitch, Marvin!" into it. Anything to shut her up.
You've never seen so many ludicrous pasty-white Boston snobs (Mother, Father and the Two Mini-Me's named Ashley and Frederick, III) all huddled in horror in the corner of a Red Line subway car, terrified that someone might actually brush up against them, all dressed in matching pressed pastel blue running suits and spotless shoes, all of their faux blue-blooded noses stuck up in the air at identical angles - yeah, like THEY had run anywhere except to Nordstroms for the silly outfits that made them more ridiculous than all the other clowns combined.
After being crammed into two subways and North Station with the "Marathon People", all I wanted to do was get home and shower the stench off of me. Woke up the next morning and enjoyed the irony: the winners of the "American Patriots' Day" running race, stage-set in the State of Massachusetts and designed to annoy the crap out of anyone who didn't get the day off of work? From Kenya and Ethiopa.
Couldn't think of a more appropriate ending to "Lazy American Patriots' Day".
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