From Jersey, with love

Some time in between smuggling champagne into a hotel with a pink suit case and getting breathed by plain-clothes cops for drinking a beer in the backseat of my cousin's car, I realized something...

I freaking love New Jersey.

Yeah, that's right. Go ahead and make all the sly remarks you want about the Garden State, but all I've experienced is greatness. I went up there last weekend for a wedding between two good friends and it turned into a three-day frenzy full of mischief, dancing and even more mischief.

On Thursday night, it rained hard on the Northeast and the rental car attendant was too lazy to find me a cheap, economy car so he threw me the keys to a Dodge Cruiser and I tore out of there like I was on the run from the law.

A 56-mile flatout burn from JFK Airport to some Italian restaurant, located in the same town I was born in. Crazy. Got to see some old college friends I haven't seen since George Bush Jr.'s first reign of terror.

Friday morning was spent drooling over Tsunami footage and filing stories for my newspaper. "Yeah coach, I'm in New Jersey. No, I will not pick you up a cheese steak. That's the wrong freaking state."

After I grabbed a cheese steak for lunch, I went to the wedding chapel to read a message about love and marriage to 200 people I didn't know. The reception was silly awesome.

My old boss from Dave's Taverna Express tried to steal my suit coat and I ate all the delicious crab craws and shrimp I could fit in my gullet. During the late-night party in the hotel suit -- security only knocked twice -- I popped not one, not two but tres bottles of bubbly. When I woke up the next day, I found a plate of chocolate-covered strawberries next to my bed and my suit had disappeared. Out of sight, out of mind.

Turns out, I was very responsible and took off my all-star wedding threads that night, carefully hung them up inside the room closet and closed the door.

The only problem was that I didn't come to the realization about the suit until Saturday afternoon, when I already had several beers in me and I was consumed inside a drunken crowd of revelers at the St. Patty's Day parade in Morristown, NJ.

I immediately thought I should jump back in the Cruiser and re-claim my suit. I was concerned I might be the same size as the cleaning lady's son and that would not be a good thing.

Instead, my NJ cousins put shots in front of me and a Burger King burger for a chaser. I called the hotel. The suit was still there! I don't trust those hotel front-desk folk so I also called the girl (who was married only 11 hours before) and asked her to grab up my suit for safe keeping.

"It don't matter," I said to myself. "Like when is the next time I'm going to need a suit on St. Thomas?"

Great timing on this one. My girlfriend's work gala is this weekend. Last time I checked, the word "gala" is not synonymous with turtle neck and elegant sandals. Have you ever over-nighted a suit? Yeah, so I got that going for me.

The run-in with the fuzz was squashed quickly. My cousin Lindsay is a NJ state trooper and before you could say the words "Drunk In Public" those rent-a-cops pulled an illegal U-turn and were off hounding other unfortunate souls.

Let's see, how do I sum up the rest of Saturday afternoon?

I heard a strange woman whisper a very crazy message into the ear of my other cousin, Andrew and I saw a girl do the worm dance move on the most disgusting pub floor imaginable. The best part was that I drank delicious draft Guinness all day -- they don't really have too many draft beers on tap on St. Thomas.

Another late night led to a very early wake-up call -- I think I actually grabbed 90 minutes of sleep -- before another high-speed cruise in the Cruiser to JFK for a 7 a.m. flight back to paradise.

The random chatter with random idiots during my flight back home was very much like the valued conversations I had in Jersey with friends, family and other associates.

I guess the shock people get when they learn where I live will never really dissipate. It almost gets overwhelming at times.

"Yes, I live on St. Thomas. Yes, the weather is fantastic. Yes..."

Sometimes, I feel like I should just wear a sign so I can skip all the banter when I meet new people. And at the same time, I always find myself inviting people to come visit me. Even people I don't even know.

"But you just met me, I'm friends with your cousin," one girl said to me.

"Buy me a shot and we'll call it even," I replied.