Note To Self: Don't Go To The Lobster Shack

You think that just because you really really want fried clams and everywhere else is closed you should go.  You think that you're tired and sunburned and it's 8:30 on a Sunday night and all you want to do is sit somewhere and eat fried clams and so it won't be so bad.  You think it might even be sort of nice to sit there at one of the picnic tables by the rocks, right on the breakers there, next to the fog horn, where you can watch the big ships approaching Portland Harbor across the wide grey ocean.  You think it won't be swarming with tourists. 

But it will.  It will be swarming with tourists and the stink from the unemptied dumpsters will be pervasive and drown out even the salty smell of the ocean and the rocky point and the beach roses right there on the rocks.  There will be harried teenaged staff and unpleasant music and bright lights and too much milling around and waiting.  It will drive you bonkers after only about ninety seconds of standing in line, and you will give up and go to a cool dark Mexican restaurant where even the piped-in mariachi music will feel like a relief. 

Just forget about the Lobster Shack.  It's for tourists, who don't know any better.  Ugh. 

Comments

[Bill Altreuter]

You can't tell me that there isn't a secret spot, that only the locals know about, where you can sit and see the surf and have a lobster roll on a Sunday summer evening. You live in Maine-- it can't be about hanging out in a Mexican restaurant-- I refuse to accept that.

[pjm]

Bill, there is such a spot, but you have to drive a good fraction of an hour from where Sherry is to get there. (I know you're mostly kidding, anyway...)

On the 4th of July weekend, my father was getting exasperated because he couldn't tie up the boat(!) at his favorite lobster-roll shack; there were two boats hogging a three-boat float. And he was grumping about tourists overrunning the place. (Name and lat/long have been concealed...)

[a]

So, we criticize Miss Hilton for not wanting to visit Maine - and it seems anyone else who might think there was something worth seeing - perhaps the beach and the harbor on a Sunday evening. But when people do show to enjoy such a place...
Now, I'm not one for spending my vacations as a "tourist" in all the typical "touristy" spots, but one cannot always expect the outsider to know better. It seems the Lobster Shack even has a way of enticing locals from time to time. (And all this from someone who gets out of the subway for work each day at Times Square. Talk about Tourists!)

[anthony]

i vaguely recall realizing this with you six or so years ago...