Help one American colony, and you gotta hurt another, or something, plus Maryland drivers suck

 Speaker Ryan may be helping the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico against the wishes of his caucus, but man is he letting them fly their freak flag when it comes to the District of Columbia. One Republican basically said that if Washingtonians did not like it, we could go join Maryland.

Bah. I do not like the idea because of a profound culture difference: Maryland drivers are terrible. And I mean terrible in a unique nowhere-else-in-America kind of way.

I just got into a yelling match with an asshole in an SUV who pretended to threaten to run me down when my kids and I were walking in an alleyway that he had turned into illegally. Fucking idiot, by the way, had a goddamned parking enforcement vehicle behind him when he revved his engine and lunged at me and my kids as we were walking. Pendejo. It ended poorly for him, as you can imagine. 

I have had conversations with Marylanders in bars who admit to thinking pedestrians should get out of their way in crosswalks. Add that to the way they honk at anything, and it makes you almost long for Virginia. Really, the craziness drops a lot among cars with District plates and dries up across the Potomac. Unfortunately, I only live a few blocks from Maryland, so I have to deal with them.

Seriously, what the hell is wrong with drivers in that state? Disrespecting pedestrians and honking at everything. Where are we, Egypt? Brazil? Mexico City is becoming better than Maryland in this respect.

Note that I have lived in Boston and Miami. Marylanders do not drive badly the way Bostonians and Floridians drive badly. I drive badly the way Bostonians and Floridians drive badly. (Well, not Floridians.) Marylanders drive fine when it comes to signalling and stop signs and situational awareness and speed limits and respecting other vehicles ... well, except for the bloody honking. 

But while the honking is annoying, Marylanders deserve their own circle of hell for the way they treat pedestrians. WTF?

But despite these strong cultural differences with Maryland (do not get me started on their traitorious racist anthem) the actions of Congress are beginning to make me think that maybe retrocession would not be such a bad idea. 

Comments

[Dave K]

As a former resident of Maryland, I think you paint too broad a brush. I drive across Western MD on my way to the Eastern Shore of MD each year to see family. I can feel the change in drivers after Frederick and it lasts until Annapolis. MD is regionally diverse. My segment of MD has been trying to secede from the state for over a hundred years (or join Delaware) and as recently as this decade. The entire Eastern Shore is more like the Outer Banks than any part of MD. The West is more Pennsylvania.

As a kid I rode my bicycle across several Highways to school as the drivers were so courteous. There is a negative element in the middle of the state (Baltimorons) their bad behavior extends beyond the road. I witnessed it every season when they descended on Ocean City or Smith Island (to hear the natives thick Cornish-like accents).

The efforts to drop the state song have grown which you would assume given the veto proof Democratic majority in the General Assembly for decades.

[Dave K]

BTW my greatgreatgrandfather was a Union soldier. When I spoke to my grandmother about him, she'd mention that he'd tell her to watch for people from the other side of the Bay when you walked beside Ocean City Road, because they'd run you over just as quick as look at you.

[JKR]

These lines from the state song nicely encapsulate your encounter, I warrant:

For life and death, for woe and weal,
Thy peerless chivalry reveal,
And gird thy beauteous limbs with steel,

If you are willing to describe sitting in an airconditioned bolt-bucket as "girding thy... limbs with steel."

[Matt McIrvin]

Since by now I've adapted to a Greater Boston style of driving, I have to consciously remind myself to be less aggressive when I'm somewhere else. The contrast with Virginia is large.

With regard to pedestrians, my experience in the Boston area is that the pedestrians are crazy, especially in areas with a lot of foot traffic like Harvard Square. They reserve the right to dart out into the street or stroll down the middle of a traffic lane at any time under any conditions, without looking.