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You Can Take The Girl Out of Jersey, But.....

Cooperstown in the winter... Beautiful! A virtual winter wonderland. There are days when I walk around town in amazement at how peaceful it is here... Well, today wasn't one of those days!

It started like any other day. Errands to run, bills to pay. An 11 am appointment at an insurance office at the hospital. I arrived at the hospital parking lot at 10:45. It was overly crowded and hard to find a spot. I saw someone leaving and just stopped and waited. I put my blinker on and he got in his car. While I was waiting, a woman came into my aisle approaching from the opposite direction. She sees me, but stops. While the man pulls out of his parking spot, this woman immediately pulls in. WHAT THE  $#%&!!!! I beep my horn, she doesn't even turn around. I beep again, she turns off her car.

And then it happened. My inner Nicky Newarker came out (if you're from New Jersey, you know what this is. It's sort of when you mix the entire cast of MTV's Jersey Shore together). As if possessed by some crazed Snooki, I jumped out of my still running car and ran over to her car. Grabbing a hold of her door (and thinking, I hope it's unlocked because if it's not, my entire scare tactic isn't going to work) and yes, pulled that unlocked door wide open. Startled, she turned around to look at me. I yell, "Get out of my spot!!!" But I'm thinking to myself, Who am I??? What am I doing??? This is Cooperstown, no one acts like this here. I am still yelling, "How do you do that? Just take someone elses spot after they have been waiting like that." She replies, "From where I'm sitting, it looks like it's my spot." WHAT?! Omg! I'm, I'm gonna...... tell on her.

I then yell, "I'm getting the guard!" What am I thinking here? I could have yelled, "I'm telling my mother or I'm telling the teacher." It would have all sounded the same. Like I was 10. So here I go. I run to the guard's little cubicle and tell him someone took my spot. He looks at me like I am totally out of my mind. I run back and the woman is now walking away from her car. I start yelling with a smile, "Hey, the guard wants to see you!!!" She walks back as the middle aged "can't I just get back to my crossword puzzle" guard waddles over. He says, "What seems to be the problem here." I reply, "She took my spot and I was waiting for it for 10 minutes (ok maybe it was more like 3, but it seemed really long). She just pulled right in! Tell her to get out of it!" The guard looks at me and yawns, "I can't do that!"

Wait! What? You're the guard! You are supposed to combat evil spot stealers! This is when the bitch from hell looks at me and smiles, "Well, I've got to go now, have a good day." I reply in my best adolescent voice "No, YOU have a good day. What comes around, goes around!"

As I get back in the car, I realize I am shaking. Thank god another spot opened up 3/4 of a second later. Ok, it wasn't like I was never going to get another spot, but I did not want to be stepped on. My God, road rage is an ugly thing. Hopefully I will not run into her in the future. Maybe she was from out of town and not from this teeny tiny town where we run into everyone at the supermarket one time or another. It could get really ugly if she cuts me off at the deli counter.

This just goes to show, that even after six years in upstate NY, you really can't take the Jersey out of the girl.

PS: I'm not too sure you can take the Jersey out of the boy either. After the meeting, I called George from my cell phone and he said, "I can be over there in 10 minutes. I can slit her tires." WHAT? Who are we? I'm pretty sure George was kidding. I've never actually seen him slit anyone's tires. But you never know. This Jersey thing, it's hard to get rid of.