Maryland isn't the worst place in the world to live. Rolling hills, pleasant scenery, (mostly) nice people. Sometimes the weather is just about as nice as you could ever wish for. Sometimes.
I know that my description of Maryland seems like damning with faint praise. Maryland must be a pretty okay place, or I wouldn't have lived here for over 20 years, right?
But Maryland has a way of embarrassing its citizens that no other state can even dream of approaching. There was former Governor William Donald (Willie Don) Schaefer screaming into the microphone to the point of causing ear-splitting feedback at the 1988 Democratic Convention. There was that retard Kathleen Kennedy Townsend who came within an eyelash of being elected Governor in 2002 based on her maiden name alone; had she run as Kathleen Smith, she wouldn't have been nominated for dog catcher.
And now there's this.
A popular seaside resort in the northeastern US state of Maryland is urging tourists to book vacations now before the ocean disappears altogether.Now I know what a teenager feels like when Mom busts out the naked baby pictures to show to his girlfriend.
Borrowing from the style of Orson Welles' 1938 radio announcement that Martians were landing on Earth, the ad features the mayor of Ocean City calling on vacationers to book "before our planet spirals to a vaporous death."
"Fellow citizens, this is Rick Meehan, mayor of Ocean City, Maryland, USA, Planet Earth," he says in the ad which appears on regional television and radio as well as on YouTube, its footage sometimes jumpy as if filmed by a Super 8 camera.
"A recent study in the Royal Astronomical Society Journal predicts that our oceans will evaporate in one billion years," he says.
"This is not due to global warming but the natural effect of our Earth being dragged towards the sun, causing our beloved saltwaters to just boil away.
"As such we are advising citizens to book their Ocean City getaway now, before the ocean evaporates. This may be the last chance you have to enjoy all that Ocean City, Maryland has to offer."
As the mayor ends his appeal, scenes of the beaches, fishing, tourist shops and children banging on crabs are flashed across the screen.
I'm going to go hide my face for a while until the shame blows over.
