An open letter to the state of Maine….sweetie I must vent!

Dear State of Maine,

You and I have had a love-hate relationship; of course you knew this all along. The truth is I did not enter our relationship freely of my own will. Life circumstances over a decade ago required that you and I enter a relationship, so I had to accept that you needed to be a part of my life. Initially I planned to leave you as soon as humanely possible, after all what did we have in common? I, of the darker hue, very urban; you, oh so pale and oh so rural. Yet over time I started to develop feelings for you and well sometimes in life settling is not a bad thing, I went from hating your guts and resenting you to truly caring about you. I am pretty certain on some level I even love you. How could I resist your charms? Your natural beauty is hard to ignore, while you are oh so pale, I learned that your paleness could be overcome…maybe I did fall in love with you just a little bit. Yet we both know deep down, my heart will always belong to Chicago. Then again, maybe you do have a slice of my heart too.

However Maine, you have some ways that make me hate you. Maine you are a bit backwards in so many ways. I know you have character, and I have learned to accept that you require a slower pace of existence. Maine, you are a four season state, yet you lose your mind in snow, why is that? Maine, why can the snow not be removed in a timely fashion? Maine, why do you have so many snow days? Chicago is colder than you, gets a lot of snow too but my great love Chicago, does not buckle or bend to snow. Maine, you are not nearly as hardy as legend would have us to believe. I’m sorry to tell you. It’s okay though, I have learned to adjust to the fact that you don’t take snow well.

Yet Maine, where you really piss me off is your car inspection sticker racket. Maine you require your cars to have valid inspection stickers, as you want to keep the cars safe, I get it. The problem I have Maine is that you allow auto mechanics to be the ones to determine the so called safety of the cars. Now Chicago my one true love requires cars to have emissions testing, but Chicago and Illinois handle it themselves, yes the state handles it so there is no ambiguity. Maine, you allow any Joe to get licensed to offer this testing that is only a mere $12.50, but you and I both know that not all mechanics are honest.

See, yesterday Maine, I made sure to get our car to the mechanic so that we would not violate your laws since yesterday was the last day of the month and our inspection sticker was good until the end of January. However my mechanic declared that in order to obtain your stamp of approval I and the Spousal Unit would need to pony up over $600 to get that little sticker. We did not believe that to be true as the car just had work done a little over a month ago, sure enough the Spousal Unit took the car to another place for a 2nd opinion and sure enough our car was deemed road worthy and only in need of a light to get that much needed sticker. Lest you think I was trying to play you, I would never do that, in fact the place that deemed our car road worthy did fail the customer ahead of us. So no concerns that this mechanic wasn’t doing his job, he was.

In the decade that we have been here, we have dealt with this car inspection racket where mechanics under the guise of following your rules, rob us for exorbitant amounts of money to obtain that precious sticker you demand of all your cars. Surely you are not so naïve as to think the mechanics you anoint are all honest and trust worthy. I have heard many others complain about this ass backwards system. Maine, you must change this, set up some state run sites or something.

Now Maine, I won’t go into it fully but I also want you to know that your health insurance laws aren’t right either. You created a monopoly where if one is not insured through their employer which many are not due to jobs not offering it, that if they try to purchase coverage on their own, they cannot afford it. Did you know that bitch Anthem charges over $400 a month for a family plan with a $30,000 deductible…we both know that’s not right? Then that moron you have running this sweet place is wondering why so many are using Maine Care…duh, how else will they get health care? Think about it sweet Maine.

Anyway Maine, I am sorry to dump on you, and I hope you can forgive me, but I just had to get this out. Let’s continue to like each other.

Warmly,

BGIM

8 thoughts on “An open letter to the state of Maine….sweetie I must vent!”

  1. Maine is a nannie state and I think always has been. So, when you’re getting ripped off by greedy mechanics who abuse the system for their own profit and pass irritating laws that are unneeded keep in mind that they are for your own good. (at least that’s what they want you to think) I won’t get started on the money the state spends on the so-called not for profits.

  2. I’m having the same inspection sticker problem, BGIM. Can you tell me the garage you went to that was honest? My car is in good shape, but some greedy mechanic rejected it, saying I needed $800 in repairs…but I’m very, very broke. Help?

  3. I am so delurking today. I understand this post and your blog as a whole. I had to check my spirit b/c when I moved from Omaha, Nebraska I vowed to never go back. No my hubby wants me to take him to visit just to see how that 4 year stint molded me as an adult and I am dragging my feet. The thing I hated about that state of NE when you bought a new car you automatically had to pay like 12% for tags on the sales price of the car. Yikes!

  4. Funny! Car inspection is like going to the doctor: always get a second opinion. You are in southern coastal Maine where the winter pattern is usually a series of storms with ice, freezing rain, and melting in between. It’s different up north and inland where once the snow and cold come, the snow and cold stay. It’s easier to adjust to, because more consistent and not as much ice. But you don’t leave the house without a blanket, flashlight and munchies in the car in the County. I was expected to drive through whiteout conditions as a teenager, and no one got too worried about me back then. Guess everyone figured the worst that could happen was I’d spend a night in a snowbank. Now that I’m middle-aged and live down here in southern Maine, I’m more chicken and I stay home at the least sign of weather.

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