Jersey Girl

I think I could be a Jersey Girl. A girl could get used to this life.

I spent the weekend in the Dirty Jerz with an old college flatmate. She grew up on the shore and moved back there after college in the midwest. I can definitely see why.

I'd heard all kinds of things about the Jersey Shore. Big hair, Guidos, mallrats, all those 80's stereotypes swirled in my head as I boarded my train in Penn Station (having missed the original train I should have taken because I was still drunk from a work happy hour Friday night that somehow turned into about 6 happy hours and at one point included me doing an impression of Bill Clinton during the Monica scandal and laughing my head off, as though this were still an amusing and timely cultural reference. But I maintain that missing the train the next morning was less my fault than the fault of the damn G train, which functions about as well as a lab rat that has had carcinogenic age-defying makeup tested on it.)

So I was an hour late when J. picked me up at the station, anxious to hit the beach. A quick stop at her house to drop off my stuff, then a short drive, and there it was. The Atlantic Ocean. A confession: I'd never seen the true Atlantic from America before. I've seen the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and while I was living in England I saw the Atlantic from the other side. I've seen Long Island Sound and the East River but never the wide open expanse of sparkling blue ocean stretching clear over to my old home across the pond. It was beautiful, just like I always dreamed it would be all those years ago when I first read about the Baby-Sitters' Club vacationing there and imagined that someday, I, like Stacey McGill, would fall in love with a cute older lifeguard and then have my heart broken at the end of my two week summer vacation and it would be terribly tragic and romantic, as eighth grade romances tend to be (for the record, Stacey McGill also inspired me to move to this city in the first place, but that's a story for another day.)

I was not disappointed all weekend, by the beach, the sun, the sand, the surf, the seaside outdoor restaurant we had crab cakes at, the boardwalk we wandered and bars we visited after sunset, the reunion with an old friend, meeting new people, and visiting a full service gas station for the second time in my life (it's the law in Jersey... how bizarre. I can pump my own gas, thanks very much.) It was a wonderful break from the city. I definitely understand why people get summer houses! Someday, I intend to be one of them.

Revenge of the Target Cashiers

I did the single-girl’s-grocery-shop yesterday. It was one of those moments when you stop, look at your life, and realize that that particular moment would have been more at home as the opening line of a bad romantic comedy (probably starring Meg Ryan and written by Nora Ephron… not that I have anything against either of these amazing women or the movies they have made together. Although it must be said, I don’t really get what people love so much about Sleepless in Seattle. It just didn’t do anything for me. But I digress…) than in the often boring, sometimes difficult, where’s-my-happy-ending-and-would-Prince-Charming-hurry-up-already-endless cycle of real life.

One of the delights of my recent move and job change is my new proximity to Target. Why there is no target on the island is one of life’s mysteries right up there with “Where do all the socks go?” and “If Mike Brady was such a great architect, why’d he have six kids and one bathroom?” But venture just a few minutes outside, and suddenly behold that mecca of my suburban upbringing, the Tar-jay. Classier than Kmart, less politically incorrect than Wal-mart, and smartly lacking that beacon of lower-class consumerism, the world “mart” anywhere in the name, Target draws us like moths to flames. I spent countless hours of my adolescence roaming the aisles, purchasing everything from butterfly hairclips and bottled Starbucks Frappucino to cat toys and greeting cards. We debated for hours about whether the guys from Savage Garden were really gay and whether or not it was okay to open bottles of Wet and Wild nail polish and try it out on one fingernail to see if the color was really what it looked like in the bottle. We drove cashiers crazy, buying bridal magazines and pretending we were engaged, pretending to be foreign by talking jibberish to each other, and once, staging an elaborate love-triangle/break-up scene in the middle of the shampoo aisle, just to see how people would react. (Hey, Midwestern adolescents have to entertain ourselves, okay? Don’t judge.)

But it was just yesterday that I realized how far my shopping habits have come (or fallen, as the case may be.) I made my way to Target after work, which I normally avoid because of the crowd, but today I thought I’d just run in and out. I was after only one thing: the studio apartment dweller’s best friend: the Lean Pocket. Normally outrageously priced (what isn’t, in this city? Even at Target) but on sale for 5 for $9, I needed to stock up. I zipped through the rest of the store, but there wasn’t much that I needed, nor that I was willing to schlep the mile back to my apartment while wearing work clothes. So I ended up at the checkout counter with nothing in my basket but 8 boxes of Lean Pockets.

Now, I can cook. In fact, much to the shock of many who knew me in my old life, I’ve turned out to be a pretty good cook. Much to my own shock, I actually kind of enjoy it. But sometimes, cooking for one gets old. Sometimes, there’s no milk or butter or salad dressing, and I just really don’t want to go back out to the store to haul home one thing that will probably go bad before I use it all. Now, this is when the normal person orders Chinese takeout and calls it a night, but I never pretended to be normal. Nor do I, as I believe I have made clear many times, have an unlimited income. So for less than a buck, the Lean Pocket seems like a marginal step up from a college existence based on ramen noodles and stolen dining hall cereal.


But it was at the checkout that I realized how far I’d fallen. I stood in line, I smiled at the toddler in front of me (see, I am a good person after all), I wished death upon the person behind me nattering into a cell phone in Korean at the top of her voice, I idly flipped through US Weekly with no intention of buying it but every desire to stay updated on the exploits of Lindsay Lohan. Then I got to the front, unloaded my basket, and when nothing happened, looked up into the eyes of the sassy older black lady working the checkout lane. She looked at me, looked at my basket, looked back at me, shook her head sadly, and said, in a booming voice that even temporarily drowned out the Korean nitwit behind me, while everyone in the store stopped and stared, “Honey, you gotta find yourself a man!”

Well, no shit, Sherlock. I’m doing my best. So, as I did my walk of shame out the door of Target with my two bags full of Lean Pockets, I couldn’t help but wonder if this is some kind of cosmic payback for the torture I inflicted on Target employees throughout my youth. If so, well played, Janet T. You are a worthy opponent.