For all of you who haven’t had the pleasure of visiting Cape Cod, MA… let me share some of my favorite ”little known things about the cape” with you. See, my parents retired there about 8 or 9 years ago so each year we take the kids up to see them for a week. During these little vacations I’ve picked up on some of the very cape cody things that only folks “up on the cape” would understand…

1. They say “up on the cape” for everything – thinking that we non-cape living folk simply don’t understand where the heck in the world the cape actually is. You mean it’s not, down by the coast, or out by the ocean?  No. It’s “Up on the cape we have a Walmart.”  no kidding? wow!

2. If you’re not ‘up on the cape’ you’re apparantly “off cape”. So right now, my mother would say “my daughter & son live off cape in New York”. really? New York is off cape? WOW!

3. The Christmas Tree shoppes originated, up on the cape. Yes folks, if you can’t find one of the several hundred Christmas Tree shops there then you must not be ‘up on the cape’ but somewhere ‘off cape’ where the rest of the non-cape society lives.

4. Don’t call them Sc-a-llops with the ‘a’ sound like in apple… they’re really “Scollops” with an “ah” sound like Olive. Apparantly the minute you step foot on the cape, your accent changes and you sound like one of the Kennedy’s. Say it any other way and you must be from off cape.

5. You’re only allowed to have one of the apparantly hysterical “Cape Cod Bridge & Tunnel Authority” stickers for your car window if you live ‘up on the cape’.  They really get a kick out of it when ‘off capers’ (another knickname for us) ask them “where’s the tunnel”? They think that’s the funniest thing ever and can only laugh about it with other retired cap-codders. (For those still scratching their heads, there is no tunnel to the cape.)

6. There’s a restaurant there called “Scargos”. Being a savvy New Yorker I say it like “Es-cargots” – but I’ve been corrected. They’re not trying to be witty with a play on words, they actually call it Scargos – like scar – goes. They don’t get it.

So the next time you venture to go up to the cape, make sure you also bring a compass – apparantly one road there that goes north, is actually called south – due to the proximity to Boston. Go figure. Maybe I should make them switch everything around then so they are actually ‘off cape’ and I’m up on the cape when I’m at work.

You know we have a Walmart here!

My life as it stands today? Backwards with a side of Salty.