Wednesday, June 08, 2005

new jersey

people from new jersey often complain about their situation in life. they complain that they are shunned as secondary citizens by their neighbors in new york city, they complain that they are unfairly stereotyped as less intelligent than their jcrew clad counterparts, and they complain that people don't give new jersey enough credit, that it isn't the stink hole that people who have never even been there attribute to it.

i never really liked new jersey that much, i don't have some blind hatred for it, my mother's entire side of the family resides around verona and bloomfield so i visit every now and then, but it's not paradise. for the next 3 months i have become a new jersey resident. i live in mercerville, new jersey. it's only been 6 days total, 3 days of working and i'm already starting to hate it. it's really only two things: the people and the scenery.

we'll start with the scenery. maybe it's because i'm unfortunately in mercerville. i think you can judge how civilized a place is by how many starbucks are around you. in new york city there is one just about every 2 blocks. ok maybe not 'civilized' but developed, even in jacksonville, fl there is a starbucks dotted around the place. my house in mercerville is very old, i live above a dentist's office and everything about it screams out old. the electrical outlets are two-pronged, which means i have to find adapter plugs for all my surge protectors, etc that have the additional grounding plug. there is high speed internet in the house but a. the office is locked from the rest of the house and i can't see how it's set up b. there is a wireless router but the guy living there says that the man who set it up forgot the network password? c. i can't get into the office and reset the wireless whachamahoozits.

in my desperate search for internet i have begun to rely on my cell phone for receiving instant messages. it's pretty pathetic and it gives me headaches as it does persay "chat" it text messages me an alert every time I have a response and i follow the hyperlink and i get to my message. yesterday i went crazy. i decided to search for the only civilization that i knew, starbucks. i knew starbucks would most likely have wireless internet, it is a haven, albeit a haven with bad coffee. i drove and drove and drove, at one point i almost ended up in philadelphia accidently and the other i ended up back around work in princeton. no starbucks. was i going crazy? tonight the search continues.

now the people in new jersey are terrible. i'm not sure what is their general attitude problem. i can understand new york, people in new york really just don't give a damn about you and mind their own business. in new jersey everyone wants to be up as close as they can be to you and tell you your business. they are just plain mean. i saw my dad's head about to explode as the realtor for potential studio in princeton gave him attitude. my dad grew up in small towns and has always lived in small town mentality, everyone is nice and no one gives you your business. i knew there was trouble when this realtor strode around with his sweater preppily tied around his shoulders as he sashayed towards spring st. "are you trying to blow your son's chances at getting this apartment?" oh god guy, you're dead, god have mercy on your soul, my dad is not the person to speak to like that.

the house i'm staying at has two parking spaces. after office hours, the family from ghana in the house moves their car to one of the spaces and the dentist has the other one until she pulls out for the day. i came home early yesterday and found both occupied. not knowing the area and it being my second day of driving in nj, i pulled into the street next to the house where the day before i saw a sign indicating it was fine to park on the side. as i turned into the street i noticed a car coming at me, i looked to the side and discovered it was a one way st. not a big deal really as it was a small street behind a grocery store. i did my best to pull to the far right of the easily 3 car width wide street and waved for them to go around me as i couldn't back up into traffic. the first car drove right at my grill and proceeded to give me the MOST angry looks and mouth of to me in his car. you'd think i killed his dog or something.

the next car was driven by a white haired old man. immediately as he saw me he decided to pull directly in front of me insteading of going around me as he had been on track to do. was it senility? no. the first guy did the same thing. only in jersey. when people do that in my town we just drive around them, hoping the driver becomes unlost.

on monday, i met tim and matt in princeton and we went out to watch a movie. it was about 10 pm and there were 2 other people in the theater. we were excited because we had driven all over the place to find this hidden AMC and had just run through the rain to get in (jersey's road system is the dumbest and most... whack thing i've ever seen in my entire life). for most of the movie they talked. this isn't the normal kind of 'loud black people yelling at the movie'or whispering to each other, as i was used to, this was fat white people that decided the theater was their living room and they could talk alongside with the dialogue.

only in jersey. somehow in the middle of their talking i snapped and told them to shut up. the girl turned and looked at us and said 'hey boooys'. she then proceeded to continue talking as her boyfriend shushed her. then he started talking with her again.

here's another anecdote. while i was shopping in wal-mart with my dad to get all the basic things i needed to move into my new home, a funny thing happened. i pushed my cart along the aisles as i searched for pillows. i left my cart parallel to one of the aisles as i searched, i went up to each pillow fluffing them out and seeing which would be the best for me. as i returned to my cart, i discovered someone had stolen one of my bath towels that i had put in my cart. i angrily got another one and checked out. it wasn't until the next day that i found out that someone had stolen the other bath towel too. what the fuck?

if i wasn't going to new york on the weekends i think i may go crazy. no offense to the wonderful people of jersey that i know at columbia, but i will never raise a family in jersey. i couldn't live with myself if i did.

0 comments: