We don't pump gas, we pump fists

It's a well known fact that the biggest no-no in the Garden State is trying to pump your own gas.  I discovered this first hand the very first time I stopped to get gas in New Jersey.  A bearded attendant screamed at me in broken English to "Put the pump down before I hurt someone."   

This seemed laughable at first as I've been pumping gas before I could even drive. (Grandma E used to give me a dollar to pump the gas for her when I was a child)  I discovered that pumping your own gas is completely illegal, on par with running over a nun escorting ducklings across the street or badmouthing the Phillies

This escapes me.  I don't understand why I'm not allowed to do this myself.  In forty-eight other states anyone everyone (even 7 year old me for a crisp dollar bill) can pump gas.

 Is there some sort of special gas station school somewhere?  Like an ITT Tech for sticking a nozzle in a tank and hitting a button?  Perhaps a class in advanced receipt delivery?

Apparently I'm not alone,  Adam B. Schaeffer of the National Review agrees.  In his article, I want to pump myself he states,

This might have made some sense in 1949 when the law was passed and when most of the population still smoked and stupidity could conceivably kill at the gas station. But times have changed and pumping gas is a safe activity that almost everyone but the handicapped can perform with the greatest of ease. Pay-at-the-pump technology is standard at gas stations coast to coast. Motorists fly through stations with the breathtaking efficiency only Americans can take for granted. That is, except in New Jersey and Oregon — the only two states atavistic, sadistic, and masochistic enough to still require thousands of "professionals" to waste time, money, and inconvenience customers. Read the full article here

I'm totally with Adam on this.  I don't understand why I must sit and my car and wait for an attendant to come over to perform such a simple activity. Put the pump in the car, pay, wait, replace pump and drive off.  Instead, you must wait....and wait...and wait. 

Honestly, if you want to perform a valuable public service New Jersey.

HOW ABOUT YOU BAG MY f#$%ING GROCERIES??


Bagging your own groceries wastes time and inconveniences everyone. During the time I'm bagging my groceries I could be doing the following:  handing my savings card to the cashier, navigating the 97 buttons on the debit card machine and signing my receipt. 

Instead, I must frantically stuff items into plastic bags before the cashier hits the total button like some supermarket sweep style duel. 

Even the seediest, scariest upon scary, pants shittingly ghetto grocery stores in Virginia bag your groceries for you allowing you to spend that type completing the transaction and move out of the way.

 To be fair, the occasional nice cashier will place the items in the bag if you only have a few.  But what I really want to see  see is an ex-Walmart greeter or a pimply faced teenager standing at the end of that register strategically sorting my items into appropriate bags.  How about we send all those gas station attendants to grocery bagging school instead?


AND DAMN IT, I WANT SOMEONE TO ASK ME IF I WANT PAPER OR PLASTIC!

New Jersey on the small screen

The creation of television shows like Jersey Shore, The Real Housewives of New Jersey, Jerseylicious and Oxygen's newest TV-turd Jersey Couture have moved the trashier parts of New Jersey to center stage.  While each of those shows highlight's the state's goofier characters it has many residents up in arms over the negative depiction of life in the garden state.

Personally, I couldn't have any less sympathy for the angry.  Get over yourselves.  No one honestly believes that everyone in New Jersey wanders around sporting a Brooklyn Blowout ,chugging down vodka and red bull while spouting about how great their mama's meatballs are.  But there are some in New Jersey who do act like that.

I know this because I've been to Seaside Heights on a Saturday night.  And don't give me the, "they're from New York" line,  I've seen just as many Jersey license plates there.


All stereotypes are rooted in some element of truth and every state has to deal with things they're not proud of.  After all,  I'm from the same region as this guy and he won a seat in the the U.S. House of Representatives:

Cooter gets er done.

Who knows, maybe this woman will be our next president:

Snooki.  Hail to the Chief y'all.

What some real life examples of stereotypes I get to deal with?

The winner gets a jug of moonshine and sex with his sister.

I've actually seen this dude driving...slowly.

A peaceful Sunday morning in the south.

And of course, who could forget this wonderful part of southern culture:

I especially love the ninja in the middle.

So what's my point? Every place has to deal with stupid stereotypes and the people that believe them.  Yours are hilarious, mine are just sad.  Get over it New Jersey. Nobody really gives a shit but you. 

Now with polling data!

I saw this on Gwaker and thought it was hilarious. Link to the Gwaker article at the end.

New Poll Confirms That Living in New Jersey Sucks

Finally giving validation to decades worth of Jersey jokes, a new Quinnipiac University poll (all they do up there is poll, all day long) says that 75% of Jerseyites are "dissatisfied" with the state of things in their, uh, state.

Is big fat Republican monster Chris Christie to blame for all of this? Perhaps. 43% of those polled called the governor "a bully," and 61% of folks didn't like his plan to slash funding for public schools. That same percentage said they wished Christie would have signed a bill that taxed millionaires. Ha ha, dumb, miserable Jersey people.

Remember when Chris Christie ran on his platform of "I'm an awful millionaire who wants to help my awful millionaire friends and no one else," and you voted for him and he won the election? Well now you have to deal with it. That's how politics works. Have fun being sad and orange and coughing on factory smoke. Trenton makes, world takes, always.

http://gawker.com/5566280/new-poll-confirms-living-in-new-jersey-sucks

I think this sums it up nicely...

Many thanks to Daniel who found this on GraphJam and sent it to me. I think it pretty much sums up my feelings.