You might be from New Jersey if…
-you know what “Quick Check” is
-you hang out at said “Quick Check” in the parking lot with your friends doing absoutely nothing and talking about what you are going to do to your car next so you can drag race it better.
-you lock your car doors even in small towns
-you are desperately wanting to leave the state to go anywhere else and when you do, find you really miss it.
-you own any kind of “hooked up” car
-you know what “hooked up” means
-you know where/what Shades of Death road is
-you have been to Shades of Death road
-you have heard of Shades of Death road
-you know where/what Ghost Lake is
-you have been to Ghost Lake
-you have heard of Ghost Lake
-you have walked across Ghost Lake in the middle of winter at dusk
-you have been kicked out of any diner for hanging out there too much
-you have been told by a cop that it is your job to drool over a nice Mustang or Camaro so you won’t be kicked out of the “Quick Check” parking lot
-you can’t get your nice drag racing car inspected because of New Jersey’s strict emissions tests.
-even after moving to California you are shocked when you find out you actually have to get off the freeway to get into the K-Mart parking lot…
-you think Jughandles and Traffic circles is the cure for all of California’s traffic problems.
-after moving to California you get lost on a side street approaching a freeway interchange because the overpass bridge is ahead and not to the right or left.
-you get mad when your California friends complain that it took 2 whole years to build a 40 mile long freeway, and tell them all about Interstate 287.
-you know what the blue law was, and on Sundays drove to Nanuet NY to shop.
-the schools celebrated Halloween, Christmas, and Hannukah.
-you knew the whole story of Molly Pitcher and the Jersey Devil.
-you understood all the stuff about hooked up cars and quick check but not ghost lake, so you ran for your back copies of “Weird NJ” magazine to find out what it was.
-you can taste the difference in a pizza that isn’t from jersey.
-you lapse into spanglish but have no hispanic heritage.
-screw what everyone else says, it’s taylor ham, NOT pork roll.
-you know at least five people who have a shore house *NOT a beach house*.
-you sit back and wait at a gas station *after waiting 2 years longer than everyone else to drive legally after midnight*.
-your parents tear up talking about how great asbury park “used to be”.
-you kow at least three people or places shown on “the sopranos”.
-you live within twenty minutes of at least three malls.