According to the National Park Service, Acadia National Park receives over three million visitors each year.

According to me, most of those visitors are crossing the street directly in front of me anytime I drive through Bar Harbor.

And oh goodness me, what a special brand of tourist I attract to my proximity, like I'm a putrefying elk carcass on wheels driving down the main street of Bottle Fly City. Crowding the street and crossing in unexpected places is fine with me — I came here from Boston, where the cops view you as suspicious if you actually use a crosswalk. But our visiting pedestrians here share the same short attention span as a kitten in an open box of styrofoam packing peanuts, which makes them stop in the middle of the street to decide where they want to go next. Thank God they didn't make a decision before stepping off the curb!

Maine, lefty pinko liberal state that it is, has passed legislation making it illegal to run down stationary pedestrians — and can't I call them something else since they're not moving? Obstructrians, or some such? — so I have to remain red-faced and still while the Rotarians from Muncie, Indiana decide if they feel like having another soft-serve cone, or perhaps buying an oversized stuffed lobster for their 13-year-old nephew who will hate it of course, or they're feeling a little hot from walking a few blocks so maybe a new T-shirt that says "I Got Scrod In Bar Harbor Maine" that has just enough double meaning but not so much that the folks at church will be offended, but Raymond we're not moving from this spot in the middle of Main Street until we know for sure where we're going next because I'd hate to have to cross the street again. Like a newly-introduced bill in Congress, I'm not moving anywhere until a large number of people I don't know have figured out what unrelated things they want first.

I have often wondered: do certain shops and restaurants reveal themselves only when viewed from the midst of a busy thoroughfare, like some odd back corner of Diagon Alley? Otherwise, if these visitors have enough mental capacity to either find Bar Harbor by car or not fall into the ocean while disembarking the cruise ship, why do they turn into armadillos as soon as they set foot upon our asphalt?

Visitors to my island, I humbly beseech you: ask not what Bar Harbor can do for you, ask what you can do for Bar Harbor. And let me give you the answer while I'm at it: get the holy hell out of the road. You're wearing out my brakes and my patience, and neither one of those are good things for me to lose when stopping my car is necessary for your very survival.