Tikkabik

Memorial Day weekend on Cape Cod, when everyone who lives here braces and gets ready to take one for the team. It's the unofficial start to summer, so there's an influx of tourists, summer residents and weekenders.

The Cape is very dependent on tourist money, so I can't begrudge these people their fun, but part of me resents it -- mostly because my living is not dependent on them in any way, shape or form. Maybe I'd feel differently if I was doing work for tourists, but as I don't, I don't feel that way. All I see is that as the weather gets better, it gets harder to travel and less convenient to get around.

Fortunately, after you've lived on the Cape for a while, you learn to navigate the backroads. They're not necessarily the fastest ways to get where you're going, but they're inevitably less congested and usually much more scenic.

And no, you can't know where they are. I could tell you, but then my neighbors would kill me.