why i stay home...


i drove up into the north of jersey this morning, to meet the fellow that bought the coal stove i had for sale, so we could off-load it from my truck and into his and what should have been a pleasant, hour and a half ride up, a cup of coffee with the fellow and a leisurely hour and a half ride home from Fort Lee, turned into sitting in major traffic jams on the NJ Turnpike, because of all the idiots who have to go sit in the parking lot of Giant's Stadium six hours before the game and drink themselves into the usual puke fest, then driving all over fucking Fort Fucking Lee because some asshole decided to remove the turn sign to get onto Route 4, including getting directions from some fat ass cop who told me "go past the second light and turn right", which deposited me on the Palisades Fucking Parkway for five miles until i could find one of those cop things in the median and made an illegal u-turn, i missed the turn back into Fort Fucking Lee and, low and behold, i found a sign for Route 4. East. not West, like I wanted, so I drove all over the fucking place until i found a u-turn, and headed back West, found the damned hotel where we decided to meet. what a fucking nightmare. we moved the stove from my truck to his, chatted for a few minutes, then we both left for home. i put on the radio to get a traffic report and heard that the NJ Turnpike South was a parking lot from the George Washington Bridge to Giants Stadium, both the Eastern and Western spurs, so I headed West on Route 4 to Hackysack (Hackenfuckingsack, YO!, to the unfamiliar) and took that blessed torrent of unbridled love filled humanity, the Garden State Parkway all the way South to Route 9 (another unpleasant alley way of seething, impatient humanity, only a few of which sport actual NJ plates on their cars...), until I could jump off and take some nice, slow, empty back roads to my home. this is why i despise, with only a few notable exceptions, driving out of my comfort zone... see map below -


click to embiggen for your viewing pleasure...

that red area enclosing the happy, shiny unicorn, is my comfort zone. to the north, certain horror and death... to the south, strange, scary people who speak in tongues, drive with their eyes shut and all have some common, not too distant ancestry...
also to fear is the Jersey Shore, usually over-run by horror and death from the North, or Jed and his wife/sister/cousin thing from the South... in the ocean are things that eat you... the zombies represent Philly. that's a whole 'nother story.

i am now happily home, trying to enjoy what's left of this day by sitting in a chair that is not moving, watching football and drinking vast amounts of beer.
it's going to take weeks to recover from this. believe me...



go ahead, make your day...