Those silly questions people “from away” ask Mainers
If you don’t want to stick out like a tourist in Maine, avoid asking these questions that pop up all the time.
The old punch line to the hopelessly lost tourist asking a local Mainer for directions is “You can’t get there from here” might not be the most helpful but it is factual. Many Maine destinations require bridges, causeways and ferry boat travel, so if you are not in the right spot, you truly can’t get there from here.
Can’t get there from here
(I’ve been there I know the way)
Can’t get there from here
(I’ve been there I know the way)
Can’t get there from here
(I’ve been there I know the way) — REM
Is it low tide or high tide? Asks the tourist renting a canoe on a lake. Note to self: Lakes don’t have tides.
You’re from Maine? I know a guy from Maine. Do you know him?
Yeah, probably not – 1.3 million people that live in the state, so chances are that that one other person you know from Maine, we probably don’t know them.
You must eat a lot of lobster! Surely, Mainers eat more lobster than the average American, but you can only eat so much of this delicious, rich and expensive shellfish. Even some lobster fishers would rather sell their catch to tourists and grab a pizza.
American lobsters were the nation’s top-valued species landed, with crabs second and scallops third. The average American ate 14.9 pounds of fish and shellfish in 2016, a decrease from 15.5 pounds the year before. Seventy-five percent of the domestic landings were used for fresh or frozen human food.
How come the lobsters in the supermarket or at the lobster pound look different?
Lobsters on the Maine license plates or on the Red Lobster sign are boiled. They turn red after cooking. Before cooking they are kind of splashy colored with black, orange and yellow tones. Mother Nature and the powers of natural selection have resulted in a camouflage so lobsters are so easily picked off by seals and large fish. Codfish are among the primary predators of true lobsters, if they were bright red in the wild, they certainly would be easier to find and snack on..
Very rarely a blue, yellow or two-toned lobster is caught.
Maine is near Boston right?
Not really, Maine is about 100 miles North of Boston and you have to drive through New Hampshire to get there.
You must go to Canada a lot!
Maine is a very large state land wise. Is about 320 miles long and 210 miles wide, and has a total area of approximately 33,215 square miles. Has one county (Aroostook) so big (6,453 square miles) that it actually covers an area greater than the combined size of Connecticut and Rhode Island!
So yeah, those who live up in Northern Maine may travel to Canada more than the average America, but those in Southern Maine, it’s a long trip! More likely they will drive down to Connecticut for the casinos or Orlando, Florida. A lot of Mainers we knew barely made it out of the state in their lifetime.
Do you have summer up there?
More and more. Of course Maine has a summer. It may be short, basically two good months but it keeps getting longer with climate change. Ponds don’t freeze up as long and winter arrives later each year. Spring can take forever to get started.
Now for some truly dumb questions asked of real Mainers that you can’t blame Mainers to answer with some Snappy Comebacks ala Mad Magazine.
- What is it like to live here now that you have running water?
- How long before a deer becomes a moose?
- Why do they park the boats all in the same direction?
- Do you have electricity?
- When does the ocean freeze over?
- How do the moose know where to cross the road?
- Who decorated the harbor with those colorful bouys?