Go Away: New Group Formed Here to Drive Away Summer People
A new group was formed last week here in the Hamptons that is devoted to having fewer people come to our community in the summertime rather than more. The group, called The Go Away Group or GAG, remembers the nightmare traffic we had here back in 2008, the lines at the restaurants, the lack of parking, the booting of cars, the roving gangs of celebutards and the extraordinary surliness exhibited by overworked waiters in expensive restaurants.
“We were inspired by the demonstrations on Wall Street and Long Wharf in Sag Harbor against the 1%,” said Abigail Higgenbottom, who says there are already 200 members signed on. A brochure is being handed out at the Shinnecock Canal Bridge, eastbound lane, and full-page ads will be placed in the most effective media in the Hamptons, Dan’s Papers.
Here is what the brochure says.
Dear City People:
WAKE UP AND SMELL THE ROSES
Did you know that the Hamptons, which you are about to enter, are fraught with serious problems? Here is a list of just some of them. The local people have known about them for years. They just don’t want you to know about them. So turn around and go back to the city. To do that, take the next major exit turnoff marked STONY BROOK SOUTHAMPTON COLLEGE, cross the tracks and make a U-turn before you get to the entrance to the college (The college is closed now. The dorms are occupied by gypsies.) Then turn left when the light turns green and you will be going back the way you came.
Note to those doing this between 6 p.m. and 7 p.m.: Isn’t the sunset over the road heading back to the city pretty?
HERE ARE SOME OF THE PROBLEMS NOBODY WANTS YOU TO KNOW ABOUT
Deer on the highways have always been a problem. Usually an accident is avoided when the deer runs off in time, but now a newer and larger species of deer is here—and these big deer, some more than nine feet tall and weighing as much as 500 pounds, have apparently joined some sort of extremist religious group bent on suicide. They walk out into the road when they see a car coming, sit down facing the oncoming vehicle and close their beautiful little eyes in anticipation of the deadly impact. There is speculation that they believe there is a better life for deer after death. Now they know.
THE POTATO REBELLION
As I am sure you know, the potato farmers have been in open rebellion against the summer people encroaching on their land for many years. Usually it is a peaceful rebellion—they’ll steal your mail for example—but every once in awhile it flares up. Currently it is as scary as it has ever been. The farmers have developed potato bazookas. They lurk in the bushes besides the roads, heft them up on their shoulders and fire potatoes directly at all passing cars that are made in Germany, Italy or Japan and appear to be less than three years old. People have been injured and there is a lot of shattered glass on the streets. Currently, a 9 p.m. curfew is being enforced in the Hamptons.
BOTTOMLESS SWIMMING POOL
Three months ago, a man from Hampton Bays named Erik Smart was arrested and convicted of building swimming pools that kill people. He advertised them as “bottomless swimming pools,” had a nice way about him, and he built hundreds for hundreds of summer people last year. They were all the rage and you had to have one. With a bottomless swimming pool, when you are swimming around you cannot see the bottom.
But Smart, who looked harmless and trustworthy, had an evil streak. Once hired, he’d immediately build wooden fences around the part of the yard where the swimming pool was to go, then dig down 300 feet. What he built down at the 300-foot level was never revealed to the buyers. Smart told them it was his secret. In any case, beginning just after Labor Day last year, in a hot spell, owners of these pools suddenly began to disappear, never to be seen again. Anecdotal evidence from family members suggested they had died after going out to swim in the pool. There was something about the pool. But there was nobody floating in it.
It was soon found that in the trailer park where Smart lives, he has rigged up a whole set of computers to link to each of the pools he had installed. With one keystroke he could activate a secret underwater camera, a flushing mechanism and a refill with water mechanism. He could flush these people away. And he did.
Smart was sentenced last Thursday. He will perform 1,000 hours of community service to be completed by Memorial Day at which time he will be free to take off his ankle bracelet and go about his business.
It is not known how many pools are still out there that he could flush. If you cannot see the bottom of your swimming pool, it might be that you have one.
DEADLY MITES
It seems that one of you globe-trotting summer folks brought back to the Hamptons late last summer a new breed of mite. It’s been identified under a microscope, because you cannot see them otherwise, as a tiny but deadly new strain of mosquito that, in Barbados, are called “no-see-ums Version 2.0.” because as I said, you can’t see ‘em. In the regular version, they cause the skin to itch, and DEET will make them go away. But with Version 2.0, immediately on contact with human flesh, the no-see-um bites a person immediately after which, in just four seconds, the person stung dies.
The local chambers of commerce are keeping it hush-hush about how many have died so far, but the worst thing, and the most ironic thing, is that there is an antidote. But the antidote, a small white pill that you slip under your tongue, takes eight seconds to enter your blood stream so by that time it’s too late.
WILDCAT LIFEGUARD STRIKE
The lifeguard union, after their request for a pay increase was rejected, voted last week that when summer comes, they will permit random wildcat walkouts to take place while the guards are on duty. Since such a thing would be meaningless when nobody is drowning, the walkouts will be timed to occur when someone is.
TICKS
As you know, wood ticks have been a problem on the East End ever since the first poodle was brought to Southampton in the 1880s. Ticks latch onto your dog, or your clothing or elsewhere and soon get onto your body, where they suck your blood. Fortunately ticks are large enough to be seen and felt—a creepy feeling—and so they can be pulled off and killed by being plopped into an alcoholic beverage. (Minimum 40 proof. Under that, ticks thrive.)
A new strain of tick has now been found in the Hamptons however. It is not poisonous and responds to all the removal methods, but does result in the victim developing a twitch or tick of the left eye. Nobody knows why. The twitches can last for months. Quite a few local people have them.
Environmentalists have given this new kind of tick a proper Latin name, twitchicus tickicus, and put it on the endangered list, so it is a crime to kill them.
VEGETABLE STANDS CLOSED
All vegetable stands in the Hamptons were shut down last week when it was found that the owners of them were secretly going to fast food restaurants at 5 a.m. every morning to get the leftover lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes and other stuff. These items are not the organic insecticide free, free-range vegetables that the stands claim they are.
THE UGLY TEST
Last week, the Hamptons Town Trustees voted unanimously to put up cameras at the place on the Shinnecock Canal Bridge eastbound where the GAG brochures are being given out. Everyone coming into the Hamptons will be photographed. All photographs will undergo a mandatory screening that rates every person on a one to five scale between ugly and gorgeous. A mile down the road, a police blockade will pull over all cars, remove everyone who gets only a one or two, put them in handcuffs and escort them westbound and out of the Hamptons to a Park and Ride Parking Lot in Brookhaven.
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The GAG Organization, which has sponsored this pamphlet, would like you to know that in spite of all of the above, the Hamptons is a wonderful place to spend the summer. We have our great celebrities here and they are often seen around town. You should know however that this summer, for the first time, if you touch one, you will be immediately arrested. Penalties are stiff. As you know, our communities are hard-up for money just as everybody else is, and so in addition to the mandatory jail sentence, there is also a mandatory fine of $50,000 per incident.
To learn more about the GAG Organization, ask any local. They all either know about it or are active dues paying members.