I try really hard not to complain about anything. No one cares that I got up this morning at 5:00am. Why should they?
In the last month, I have nearly had a few car crashes while driving to my destinations. Totally not my fault!
Why does it feel like I’m only one of the only people obeying the traffic rules lately? Where are the local police?
Now before you go defending the police and bashing me about the comments I’m making based on my own perceptions through observation, I have two kiddos who are police officers, luckily, not here in Pagosa. Trust me, as a retired public servant, I need no reminding of how hard police officers work. But, where are they, when you need them?
Oh, I forgot, they are hiding in the most inconspicuous places outside of their jurisdiction, sometimes in unmarked cars, at the end of each month, waiting to pounce on a local resident for speeding two miles over the speed limit or for running a stop sign so they can fill their monthly quotas. If you don’t believe me, check out the police blotter in the local Thursday newspaper. I have heard police officers making bets as to who will fill their monthly quotas first. Very sad.
For some reason, only New Mexico and Texas residents who come to our “beautiful” area for whatever reason are allowed to do the following:
1. Make a U-turn right in the middle of the highway on Main Street directly in front of other cars during the busiest times of the day. How they maneuver this during the construction is baffling.
2. At night, they drive along the main highway only to decide they don’t like the direction they are going and suddenly pull a U-turn in the middle of the highway with oncoming traffic. I’m praying that I don’t get rear-ended. (I still have PTSD from the last time I was rear-ended)
3. Pull out of one-way streets going the wrong direction with absolutely no conscience that they are doing the wrong thing. Other drivers, myself included, are praying to the God above that no one was hurt.
4. (My ultimate pet peeve, and trust me, I don’t have many) Flip off Colorado drivers at stop lights when it’s their turn to drive through them — just for fun? It is then that I wish I had scissors to cut off all of the middle fingers that have suddenly developed arthritis and stood at attention flipping others off. It’s apparently not considered harassment anymore, according to police officers)
After more than thirty years, people on motorcycles can park right in front of my house on a private driveway sitting around discussing who knows what. When I ask if they are lost, they tell me that they are just taking a break and chatting while they rest. I reply, “You’re on private property” to which they respond defensively, “We didn’t think anyone lived here” as they see two cars parked directly in front of the house with a barking chihuahua warning them to leave the premises before he tears them up.
After a phone call, a higher-up official proceeds to give me lip service and tells me that because my driveway connects with the town’s road, there’s nothing that can be done to keep people out of my private driveway; hence, the “private property” signs missing or run over at the edge of my driveway. So much for privacy.
When a person calls in an offense with the license plate number, the dispatcher only wants your information, not information about the infraction. To add further insult to injury, they then promise to call a person back with an update; they never do. If and when a police officer finally responds, they can’t do anything because there is no crime. Duh!! The person has fled the scene. What happened to not leaving the scene of the accident?
Guess I’m still living in the Dinosaur Age or so I’ve been told. And then people wonder why there is such a mistrust of police officers doing their jobs. And if you’re a good police officer following the laws of the book, Bam!. You’re gone. No more use for the good ones.
I’m extremely disappointed and so tired of the lecturing to all locals/natives of Pagosa reminding them to use their good manners and to be welcoming and respectful of all the tourists who land here. What about those same tourists getting lectured as well? Maybe they need to pass through a station as they enter our little town with someone handing out copies of the same guidelines on how to be an outstanding tourist who also treats the locals/natives with the same respect.
I have witnessed, firsthand, tourists blatantly and rudely berating the workers at various establishments. (this includes employers who have moved here and purchased the establishment doing the same to employees) I have seen people from back East (I’m ashamed to say I know the people personally), literally throwing their money at the waitress/cashier as they pay their food bill.
At the local post office, it is a shame to hear tourists, or those who have rented a home here for a specific season, complain about our welcoming townspeople and the shortage of staff here at the local post office because they simply cannot push their way to the front of the line. I say with a smile, “I can’t imagine it being any better in a big city post office.” I often get a dirty look, or they leave the line disgusted and feeling inconvenienced.
Trust me, no one wants to stand in line waiting anywhere, patiently or impatiently, for any period of time. Maybe they need to stop cutting our post office staff? Maybe people need to be better prepared when mailing packages and submitting paperwork for passports and new mailboxes so that the postal worker doesn’t have to do everything.
Maybe the post office needs to stop accepting packages from UPS (who no longer delivers to your door as promised) and from Amazon. Or maybe those who get curbside mail delivery, need to pick up their damn mail, at least weekly, instead of waiting six weeks or longer from their mailboxes and curbside package cubicles.Then people get irate because they have to come to town to pick up their packages because there is no room left to stuff them into their curbside cubicles. God bless those postal workers who serve us all selflessly with a smile on a daily basis. They ought to post signs that say, “No bitching allowed.”
It is for these very reasons that I refuse to re-enter the work force since I’ve retired.
Too many people are busy making up so many rules and not getting anyone to enforce any one of them. Why make so many rules in the first place? Not everyone needs micromanaging. If the saying,”What’s good for the goose is good for the gander” is true, then enforce all of the rules people have wasted their time making.
Maybe those rude tourists who think they can mistreat anyone they want disrespectfully need to slink back under the rocks they crawled out from under. They are obviously here feeling entitled trying to make life miserable for others. It’s those very tourists who bring and flaunt their money. They think they are doing small rural towns a favor by supposedly saving them.
Wrong! They come in and buy up the town, eventually pushing out the natives, a tradition that’s been going on for centuries and will continue long after my demise. Others come to stay for a period of time with their visions, changing the rules and making their fortune, and then they leave on their merry little way to infect other rural towns with their disillusioned and disastrous visions.
We locals/natives are left behind holding the bag with their messes and left to figure out how to make and keep throwing nonexistent money at the problems that are never fixed by punishing the local/native taxpayer.
I’m really a nice person… until I can’t be nice anymore.
Maybe I’m an old local/native. Maybe I’m just tired.
Maybe now, I’m just complaining.
Maria Martinez
Pagosa Springs, CO