Advice for anyone thinking of moving to a small town on the coast of Maine and living in an apartment right on Main Street:

It can be very nice -- until the Clam Festival came to town. The crowds are a pain, especially the people who sit on my front porch and chat up a storm (with each other, I mean) while I'm trying to read. (No air conditioning, so I can't close the front window.) Then there's the clippety-clop of the horse-drawn wagons up and down the street, mixed with occasional warning toots from the police cars, and music from a calliope or something that drove back and forth so I only heard a couple of bars of the same damned tune every five minutes or so. The main bandstand was directly across from my front window, not more than 30 yards away. The stage music was tolerable, at least until a barbershop quartet started singing "Now I Know My ABCs" and "Rubber Ducky". The oompah band's version of "American Pie" was another low point, as was the edited version of Kansas City: "goin' to Clamma City, Clamma City here I come". I never knew fireworks could be quite so loud, either: they were launched from about 50 yards outside my window.

Now the festival-goers have all departed and I'm catching up on my rest and relaxation. I never did get any clams.