Chocolates and Mooses

The only moose I have ever seen here is a chocolate one...

Many people ask me what's wrong with living in Maine anyway, since I do tend to complain about it ad nauseum. After all, it's the epitome of beautiful, scenic, easygoing, no hassle living right? Right. But still, some things bug me, like:

1. At my last job interview, which was scheduled after I answered an ad on Craigslist and had a positive phone conversation with the employer, and for which I dressed professionally and arrived punctually, the 6-year-old granddaughter of the interviewer was present the whole time. She wanted to sit on Grammy's lap! She kept asking what we were talking about! She wanted to color and needed crayons and paper! She was hungry! All of this bullshit went on while I tried to enumerate my qualifications and inquire about the job's requirements. My interviewer, a.k.a. Grammy, was naturally quite distracted. The wobbly stool I was sitting on was held together with duct tape. Scads of people interrupted us many times during the interview. But the WORST part was that, although this was a chocolate shop well-known for its chocolates, I learned on a tour of the premises that they actually BUY THE CHOCOLATE IN BIG BLOCKS FROM SOMEONE WHO REALLY DOES MAKES CHOCOLATE SOMEWHERE ELSE!!! Then they melt it in big vats in what the call their "factory," and pour it into molds and slap their own labels on it. Oh please.

2. I have lived here for more than five years and have never seen a moose, yet there are signs all over that say "Watch Out for Moose" or "Moose Crossing." I now believe, as my husband conjectured years ago, that the signs are for the benefit of the tourists and there are no moose anywhere around here, except for Lenny the Moose (see photo) in Scarborough, Maine.

Those two things, and the fact that there are no Jewish doctors, are really the only problems.