the unofficial start of...

the weekend nightmare traffic season (and you thought i was going to say summer). memorial day weekend always marks the unofficial start of the summer season at the jersey shore, which brings with it 2 of the most unfortunate biproducts of living at the shore - traffic and summertime vacationers (not the people that come for a weekend or even a week, but rather most everyone who comes to the shore for the entire season).

traffic is a nightmare around these parts during the summer. what is normally a 30-40 minute commute home on fridays inevitably turns into at least 90 minutes and could very easily break the 2 hour mark. by the time you get home, you need anger management classes, 6 margaritas, and 3 hours of non-stop bob ross on tv to bring you back down to earth. Ughh!

and then there are the full summer vacationers. it appears many are from ny, based on the ratio of nj to ny license plates in the summer. for every 1 nj license plate you see, there are at least 3 ny plates. for the most part, many of the types of cars these vacationers drive are worth more than the house that we live in, and it certainly doesn't help my ego to see that most of the drivers of said cars aren't even old enough to drink and possibly may not have even graduated high school yet. but believe it or not, none of that is really what bothers me about these vacationers. what bothers me is the fact that as soon as they arrive in nj, they seem to think that they are the actual leaders of the free world. they drive extremely fast and aggressive on local roads, jump to the front of any line they may be waiting in, and believe that any service professional waiting on them should be doing so before anyone else. not all summer vacationers are like this, though, but the many that i've had experiences with have left a bad taste in my mouth (and by "bad" i mean horrifically abominable.)

i love having guests come visit us, especially in the summer, because i think the area we live in is beautiful and i enjoy showing it off. i can say with a great degree of certainty that i wouldn't want to live anywhere else. because i am so enamored with the area, i put up with the summer vacationers every year, knowing that as soon as the day after labor day comes, all summer vacationers are gone and my family and i can enjoy another 9 months of peace and tranquility at the jersey shore.

until then, margarita anyone?