Chivalry is Dead in NJ

News flash: Chivalry is dead in New Jersey. Done. Finished. Finito. No more.

I take pride in the fact that I can do a lot of things myself. I have no problem hanging a picture, putting together furniture from IKEA, mowing the lawn, going to the dump and pumping my own gas. However, if someone wants to do this for me, go right ahead. If I waited for my husband to do all these things, hell might as well freeze over.

So today, in my independent fashion, I took the girls and the dog to run some errands in the Ford F150 (yup, I don't mess around). First we went to the town hall so I could sign some 'important' school comm. documents, then I put gas in the truck (self serve), then we went to the rental house and collected 5 barrels of trash (yuck! I don't mind my own trash, but handling someone else's trash is gross to me), picked up the mail, went to the dump (actually the PC way to say it is Transfer Station) then went to the place where one gets gas for the grill in a commercial park. I really should have taken a picture, because it is basically a shack and a big gas tank with barbed wire around it and they only take CASH.

I pulled in to the driveway of said gas "store" about 3 minutes after an older man from New Jersey. I hauled my ass out of the truck, dropped the tailgate, grabbed the tank and spit my chew on the ground (ok, I exaggerated on the last point). The very nice, slightly overweight man who runs the place came to my aid and grabbed my tank. Not necessary, but very nice. I said hello to the the NJ man and silently wondered who bought him his tshirt. I really, really tried to find you a picture of it. Think white tshirt with blue outlines of lighthouses all over it. Yeah, you got it. Not just one lighthouse, but about 40.

NJ man leaves, it's my turn. After gas tank is full, gas man says to me,
"Well I guess chivalry is dead in NJ."
"How come?" I ask.
"Because when I went to grab your tank, Mr. Lighthouse says, 'let her haul her own damn tank over here'."

And to think I smiled and said hello to Mr. NJ Lighthouse.

I think I will make the gas man some brownies and bring them to him tomorrow.