Wednesday, October 20, 2004

Bright light city gonna set my soul, Gonna set my soul on fire

Imagine driving on a stretch of road that has a divider between traffic.
Imagine being on this road on the wrong side and desperately trying to find an outlet that would allow you to do so. Imagine being on this road and passing 4 towns before finding an outlet which turns out to be a side road to the local airport. Imagine being on this road with a husband who at every passing light is bemoaning about the state you are in. Imagine driving down this road with the Dead Kennedys' rendition of 'Viva Las Vegas'.

This folks, is what it's like driving in Jersey.

All hubby wanted to do was check out a WalMart. Yes, we've never been to a WalMart and for some silly reason, part of my birthday weekend of doing things we normally don't do involved going to a WalMart.We grab the directions from their website and head to Jersey, backwater country for us. I swear to you the directions given were an omen. Ok folks. Go to the WalMart website and look up the directions for the Saddle Brook, NJ store. Got them? Good. Now, throw them out. 'Cause if you follow it to the letter, which we did, you wind up in a residential circle. No lie. In truth, the instructions are good up to 'ESSEX ST becomes MARKET ST.' They aren't lying about that. But if you make a left at Legregni and then a left at N.Lanza, you wind up at E.Lanza and eventually S.Lanza and then back to Legregni.

So I call Wal-Mart. “Uh, well I couldn't tell you how to get there from where you are but you need to go to the underpass and make a left.” Thanks. But how are you sure that I'm at the right underpass. And while looking for your itty bitty street signs, I've got my husband worried about on coming trains. There are a billion train tracks in Jersey and the only thing between us and death is a single tiny gate arm.

Well, I gave up and used our GPS, aka my brain and a AAA free metro area map.
That's when the Viva Las Vegas started. If you ever find yourself on Rte 17 or 46 in Jersey, you'll understand. We got onto Rte 46 and were elated to see a Wal-Mart sign at the next light. We weren't so elated when we watched the sign pass us as we had no outlet to turn into to get there.

Three towns later, we're passing Lodi's Pizza and Hubby is getting irate.
Viva Las Vegas is on and I can't help but start laughing uncontrollably.
By the time we found an outlet, we were by the local airport and hubby exclaims,
“Oh my god, is this how a terrorist can get to a plane? We're practically on the runway.” By this time the ending to the Viva is on. You know the really fast part. I'm hyperventilating and we're heading back to Saddle Brook to of all places, WalMart.
By the way, WalMart sucks.