Annoying Boston

Awhile back, The Improper Bostonian published an editorial about Boston, that I thought was hilarious. I would have linked you all to the article right away, but the Improper does not publish there issues on their site. So I kept the article, and vowed to one day, share it with all of you.

Well my friends, that day has come.

Transcribed by me, for your reading pleasure.

by Ezra Dyer

I love Boston; really I do. We've got world- class restaurants, universities, hospitals and museums. We've got at least one great sports team at any given time. Beautiful beaches and majestic mountains are only a day trip away. Even our oft-maligned airport is ridiculously easy to get to, in comparison with those of just about any other major city. And consider these scenes: a lazy summer day on the Esplanade. Fenway in the throes of some late- inning heroics. Hanover Street in the North End at dusk. The Public Garden in bloom on that first really warm spring day. These are the reasons we live in Boston.

Or perhaps more accurately, these are the reasons we put up with it.

Because Boston is annoying. Certain conditions you accept, implicitly, when you move here. You know your taxes are going to make the feudal serf system look fair. You know that car insurance rates will require you to regularly sell your body to German businessmen just to keep your '93 Tempo on the road. You're certainly aware that our housing costs are insane, real-estate bubble or not (take it from someone who rented a ratty 660 sq foot apartment in Beacon Hill from 2,100 per month- five years ago). But those conditions of life in Boston are as predictable as Danny Ainge's trading half the Celtics roster by December. What you might not know is that in the strata of Boston's annoyingness, that's just the crust. Grit your teeth with me, then, and let's dig a bit deeper.

Annoying Fact #1
The T will continue to confuse you no matter what you do.

If you want to get around Boston on the T, you'll need to buy yourself a prepaid Charlie Card. The Charlie Card is imminently convenient, except that it doesn't yet work at all the stations. From now until December, we're in limbo between Charlie and Selma (Selma being our collective name for the token slingers ensconced in their cheerful armored booths). So, should you should buy a Charlie Card, a conventional monthly pass, or a fistful of tokens? Since I know so much about Boston, I'll tell you right this sec- hey, look! A Unicorn!

Once you've paid for your ride, there are a few other foibles you should know about. First of all, the E trains on the Green Line are an inside joke among Bostonians, because they're the only ones that do not go to Kenmore Station from Park Street. Really, the E line is nothing more than a form of hazing for newcomers. Many a freshly minted Bostonian, myself included, has zoned out on the train en route to Fenway, only to wind up at Prudential or or Symphony, wondering what the hell went wrong. Consider it an initiation rite the first time you sigh is exasperation when an E train comes around the corner at Park Street, because at least you know not to climb aboard. Ditto the first time you successfully navigate from the Orange Line to the Green or Red Line via the subterranean maze connecting Downtown Crossing and Park Street. There are trolls down there, so be careful. Finally, it takes a while to get your bearings on whether you should head inbound or outbound, depending on your location- determining, as one new arrival termed it to me, "whether you're facing the Mecca of Park Street". The sometimes you're on your way through Park Street, and the train abruptly goes out of service. Then there's..... OK, we'll stop now.

Annoying Fact #2
Moving Day is the Worst Time You'll Ever Have

Everyone's lease in Boston begins and ends on Sept. 1st. When I moved to Boston, I found one of the roughly five apartments in the city with an October lease, so I had the luxury of an unfettered move-in. My landlord promptly changed that however, and when it came time for me to move, I was thrust into the unmitigated hell that is Moving Day.

As if boxing up and transporting all of your possessions isn't tough enough, Boston's en-masse move presents additional challenges. For instance, you might want to buy four skateboards to help move your bed across town because chances are U-Haul's closest available truck is parked in Nova Scotia. And even if you do score a truck, good luck trying to park it. Sure you can pay for "moving zone" permits from City Hall, but you can't make people respect them. Bostonians on Moving Day will be deterred from snapping up open parking spaces by nothing short of armed sentries (and possibly not even then). We spit at your "No Parking Sign", silly U-Haul driving pig-dog!

But, for the sake of argument, let's say you've got a truck and a spot outside your digs. Now all you've got to do is navigate your surprisingly heavy furniture around the mountains of trash, that are a consequence of the collective clean-out. When I moved out of Bay Village, I found myself saying things like, "Hey, could you kick that stack of gay porn to the side? I don't want to trip over it and drop the TV. Thanks, Mom".

Annoying Fact #3
Closing Time Is a Melee.

In cities where the bars stay open till the wee hours, everyone filters out at their own pace. In Boston, bars close at either 1am or 2am, and the ensuing rush of tipsy patrons onto the street creates a cab crisis or epic proportions. If you remember nothing else from this story, newbie, remember these to tips: Leave 15 minutes before closing time, and if you don't do that, swim upstream.

The first concept is pretty self-explanatory: If you can restrain yourself from indulging in that last 15 minutes before closing time, you'll get a jump on jokers who stick around until the lights come on. Fact: At 12:45am there are plenty of cabs. At 1:05 am, they're all taken.

So what to do when you just couldn't tear yourself away from the bar? Walk away from the epicenter of the action. While it's bad form to walk 100 ft up the street from someone trying to hail a cab- in fact, they might sprint up the and throttle you over such an indiscretion- if you continue all the way out of their sight, you're in business. For example to catch a cab out of Faneuil Hall at closing time, I once hiked up the Router 93 off ramp. Worked like a charm. As long as you're willing to to push the envelope beyond the next person waiting for a cab, you'll get home. But why not take the T home after hours you ask? The don't run that late, Bunky. If it did, that would be convenient and non annoying, and, as you're hopefully learning by now, that's not how we roll around here.

Annoying Fact #4
The Weather's Even Worse Than You Think.

You know Boston's not San Diego, but until you've spent a full year here you can't comprehend what you're in for. Last winter was unusually warm and pleasant by Boston standards and we still had a storm in which thunder, lightening and a whiteout blizzard all occurred simultaneously. You didn't think lightening and snow could happen at once? I scoff at your naivéte. And, like I said, last winter was a peaceful one, the kind of winter where, instead of being abjectly cold and miserable, you're just constantly apprehensive about when the miserable time will finally descend. Twice in the past five years, I've seen my car buried in snow so deep it was only a vague, car like shape under a thick white blanket. And two years ago, we had a cold snap of such duration that someone spit a loogie on the sidewalk in outside of my office and it stayed there, for two weeks! Welcome to Boston!

Annoying Fact #5
You Need A Law Degree to Decipher Our Parking Signs.

Here are the parking rules, just on one block of my street: Resident Parking only 6pm-10am, Monday to Friday, for most of the spots. Then there are a few spots designated for visitors. Those have a two hour limit. So a nonresident could park in one of those spots at 8am Friday morning and stay there until 2 am Monday morning. Of course, on one side of the street you have street cleaning from 8am to 12pm on the first and third Thursday of the month, from April 1 to November 30th. On the other side, same deal but on the second and fourth Thursdays. You've also got a fire hydrant and a handicapped space. And there's a space between two driveways that's perfectly legal, but where I, nevertheless once received a parking ticket. I peeled it off my windshield and marched over to a state trooper parked nearby and asked, "Is that a legal space, where I parked?" "Oh definitely," he replied. "I park my car there all the time". So on just one block, you've got to consider resident/nonresident timing distinctions, street cleaning, a fire hydrant, a handicapped space, and a space that confuses even the BTD ticket- writers (my ticket was dismissed). I'm afraid this scenario if pretty representative of everywhere in Boston, but certain neighborhoods have their own quirks.

For instance, in Brookline you can't park on the street overnight, a rule that goes back to the towns inception- you see back when people rode horses, the parked horses would get in the way of the nightly door- to- door witch burnings, and that's why in 2006 you can't leave your Camry at a meter overnight. Fine- I made that up. But I'm sure there's an equally reasonable explanation, and I'd go to Brookline to research it if it wasn't so hard to park over there.

Annoying Fact #6
Pedestrians Have Right of Way. And You Can't Tell that to the Friends You Make in Heaven.

Boston has this hilarious practice that makes people look pretty darn silly. What we do is- snort! cackle!- rig our "Walk" signs so that they're lit at the same time cars have a green light to turn across the intersection. If you'd like to see this awesome system in action, go to the intersection of Mass Ave and Boylston Street and watch the hijinks that ensue as drivers turn onto Boylston next to the Berklee College of Music. According to Berklee professors, fully 65% of the original music written by students is about getting hit by cars. Sample lyrics: "Got hit by a Lexus today/Had a lit walk sign/Now I got some shattered vertebrae".

Annoying Fact #7
Happy Hour isn't so Happy.

I suppose this isn't just a Boston thing, but a New England thing. One random, unexpected poetic skier up at Killington once remarked to me, "Happy Hour in New England is a eunuch who's three feet tall". What he meant by that is, you may see Happy Hour specials, but they apply only to food, not alcohol. I appreciate the gesture represented by but-rate after work nibbles (I've eaten a few dinners that consisted of nothing but the 10 cent wings at Whiskeys), but the lack of proper happy hour gets filed under the "Reasons Boston is still uptight 200 years after the Purtians", along with "Only two strip clubs" and "No open containers".

Speaking of which, I've had it: Writing this story has underscored a very important realization for me. When you've had it up to here, get out of town for a few days. Whatever's wrong with Boston, chances are it's right with Vegas.