New Jersey shenanigans

There is so much to update about! The turnaround between getting back from NY/NJ and heading off to Chicago was approximately 12 hours.

New Jersey was a trip full of shenanigans! The trip was originally made under two assumptions: I would get to visit the Tick Tock Diner, because it was showcased on Food Network, and I would get to go to a sketchy batting cage.

Tick Tock Diner ended up being further away than we thought, so I accepted Spinning Wheel Diner instead. Our waitress was seriously doing lines of coke in the bathroom or something. There was an ornamental plant hanging in the window, and every time she walked to our table, she'd slam her head into it and she always seemed confused afterwards. She kept forgetting parts of our order and would laugh about it and say, "Sorry, I walk away and just forget." I saw prosciutto omelet on the menu and asked her whether it was delicious or not, where did the diner get the prosciutto from, etc. She stared at me blankly (probably coked out of her mind) and said, "Um. I don't know, I'm a vegetarian."

Awkwardly, I ordered the farmer's omelet. The omelets are giant (also, if you haven't noticed, I only recently learned how to spell "omelet" and I apologize for all previous awful spellings) and they share a huge platter with a mound of hash browns. The hash browns were a little bit of a let down, not a lot of crisp. More greasy and soggy than anything else. I thought about taking half of it home because there was so much, but the Jersey kids made fun of me for wanting to bring home leftover diner food. To show them who's boss, I ate the whole thing. And then promptly almost died.

The second goal was to head over to the batting cages. By the time we worked out our coordinating outfits and ventured to what seemed like an abandoned warehouse in the backwoods of Jersey, the place had closed. In an effort to salvage the day, Voorhees kept driving down the road. Distraught and overwhelmed with silent tears, I looked up to see my salvation.

I demanded she pull over, which she did, and I climbed up this massive hill to pose with the billboard.

While she tried to get everything in the frame, these kids on bikes rode by and heckled me. They were probably like 9, 10 years old (unless evolution has delayed male puberty since last I took sex ed) and one of them was riding a girl's bike. It was pink with pom poms tied to the handlebars, which I didn't think they made anymore. Well, I take that back. Just because it's pink with pom poms does not make it a "girl's bike."

They rode around and kept saying things like, "You're going to get arrested!" and "Do you like breaking the law?" and "What do you think you're doing?!" Hooligans! Then they rode off into the street and I secretly hoped they caused an accident so that I could yell at them as we drove off, "You're going to get arrested! Do you like breaking the law? WHO'S LAUGHING NOW?!"

Then we drove around some more and found this amazing "free" yard sale. The reason it was free was because it was all crappy leftovers that the family couldn't sell. Like broken vases and toys from the 1960s. Our disappointment in the "free" stuff was quickly forgotten as we sprinted across the street to a PLAYGROUND.

We played on it and I demanded Voorhees take an obscene amount of pictures of me. Out of guilt more than anything else, she obliged and snapped pictures of me riding a seesaw, laying all over the playground equipment, playing in the sand, falling down the slide (I am too big. My legs got stuck while my butt kept swirling around and I ended up flying out head first. Probably in large part due to gravity pulling the biggest parts of my body, like my head and butt, down fastest). The whole time, this family was sitting off to the side staring at us.

Then we went over to the swing set made for toddlers. The ones where the seat looks like a high chair. Voorhees swore she could fit in it, so she climbed in and promptly got stuck. I laughed and when the family wanted to help her out, I yelled at them and told them that she got herself into it, she sure as hell can get herself out. Hahaha, well she definitely could NOT get herself out. Her feet ended up lodged in the seats while the rest of her body hung down from the swing. We had to take off her shoes to get her out, which she originally refused to do because the shoes were new. She finally caved when she started losing feeling in her limbs.

Later, as the family's small child started to run after us to play, her mother pulled her back and said that we were "teenagers" taking pictures. Hooligans.

Here is a picture of my unfortunate tumble down the slide. It was traumatic and scarring.