Yesterday, in a cleaning frenzy, I decided that I needed to wash all of our blankets and quilts and then I decided that I needed to also wash all of our floor rugs and bath mats.
Being that this would require about 10 loads of wash, I decided to load up the truck and take it all to the laundromat because they have those giant machines.
I was expecting to go there, throw all my stuff in machines, then get out ASAP but I haven't been to a laundromat in a very long time so I needed a little help from the manager, a guy I'll call Pat in the interest of his privacy.
Well, it turns out that Pat is a really nice and helpful guy who manages the place. Pat had to show me how to load things so I didn't over- or under-fill the machines. The machines aren't marked to tell you how much they are, so Pat helped me with that, too ($11.50 for the ultra giant machine and $8.50 for the regular giant machine - total cost with drying was near $40!).
He and I got to chit-chatting while things were drying and it turns out that, like me, Pat is also from New Jersey. In fact he still vacations with his family in Point Pleasant, where I'm from. He showed me his NJ area code tattoo which is the literal mark of a loyal New Jerseyan.
Pat asked me how I was liking Delaware and I admitted to him that I'm struggling with living here due to it being vastly different from NJ (I'll elaborate in a future post). He said he understood because he's been living here for years and he's still strugglng, too. He confirmed what I've been feeling since I moved here: Delawareans don't take too kindly to New Jersey transplants.
The New Jersey transplant thing has gotten old for me and I roll my eyes every time I hear some Delawarean go on about it. You know what NJ is filled with? People from other places. You know what NJ does about that? Nothing, except maybe build more places where all the people from all over the place can spend their money like restaurants and shops and delis. New Jerseyans are smart like that: they act on opportunity when they see it instead of sitting around whining and taking to their keyboards to complain about it.
Also, why are there no real delis in Delaware? Why does everyone go to Wawa instead for hoagies (God, I hate that word. It's a sub.) Why is there no culture here? It's the East Coast, for God's sake. Except for that one Italian area in Wilmington which is barely Italian compared to Italian areas in Jersey, there are no cultural areas in the entire state.
When I was a little kid in Elizabeth NJ, my friend group consisted of Polish kids, Irish kids, Italian kids, black kids, Puerto Rican kids, Filippino kids, Brazilian kids, Portuguese kids, some kids from NY, and that one girl from Sacramento, CA.
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| (i'm the one seated behind the girl with the yellow shirt) |
You know what we all did? We played together and went on adventures and got to eat a whole bunch of different foods that our mom's cooked and fed to us neighborhood kids (Okay, my mom didn't really cook all that much but we almost always had baloney and Wonder bread home to eat. And PB&J. And my mom worked in a diner so we could go there if we got hungry), like those sandwiches Mrs. Diaz used to make with that Portuguese cheese on Portuguese rolls.
One time I remember me and my friend group walked from school to White Castle on the Route 1&9 highway. We looked like a walking advertisement for United Colors of Benetton, there were so many nations represented among us.
By the way, people come together for White Castle. It's still that way. Everyone is equal at White Castle.
But Delawareans wouldn't know that because there are no White Castle's in this entire state!
OK, sorry about the tangents. You should know I'm like the queen of tangents.
The truth is that I'm not happy living in Delaware - there, I said it - and one of the reasons for that is the NJ transplant thing that I'm beyond tired of hearing about. I should add that when we lived in New Castle county some years back, no one there cared that we were from NJ. In lower Delaware (Kent/Sussex) they do care. A lot. Be mindful of that if you're thinking of moving here from anywhere.
Last year I had some painters come around to give estimates. One of them asked me if I was from NJ. I said I was and he said that he'd "be adding 25% to the estimate ha ha". Guess who didn't get the job?
That's how we roll in Jersey. Ha ha.
Anyway, the laundromat.
So I met Pat and had a nice chat with him and then there were some other nice people there and the place is super clean and now I think I'm going to bring my laundry there regularly even though I have a perfectly new washer and dryer, because I need to get out of the house more and be around people more and God knows there's nothing else to do in the godforsaken state*.
I just won't tell them I'm a proud New Jerseyan who is counting the days until I can move back there.
I think Pat will keep my secret. He's one of "us".
My new hobby: hanging at the laundromat.
Oh well. Maybe I'll get some good stories out of going there like when you overhear stuff at bars and hair salons.
It might be time to get that 'literal mark of a true New Jerseyan'. Is it irony if I go to a Delaware tattoo shop to get a NJ tattoo?
*My feelings about downstate Delaware are based on my own experience. There are plenty of people who love it here and I'm glad for them because it's terrible when you don't like where you live.
