Regrets, I Have a Few — But Not This, Not Anymore

I just wanted to feel like I was living in a Bruce Springsteen song. I wanted to be that girl “you saw boppin’ down on the beach with the radio.” When I was a teenager, I wanted to work on the boardwalk.

But I never got a summer job at the Jersey Shore, choosing instead to work for a temp agency near my parents’ house in North Jersey. As a result, I never got to be that girl, the one who ran the Tilt O’ Whirl or checked beach tags “down the Shore.” Rather, I worked in an un-air-conditioned clothing warehouse with a tin roof near the Meadowlands. And I regretted that decision– until last week.

Last Thursday, my husband and I took the kids down to several shore towns for a day trip. While we were eating lunch at a rooftop restaurant on the boardwalk, I watched a girl who was running the beach tag stand by the beach. Her job is to sell beach tags (yes, it costs money to go on the beach in New Jersey), and to check that everyone who returns to the beach is properly displaying their tags.

And she was utterly, completely bored out of her skull:

And bored…

Until cop-on-a-Segway paid her a visit…

But by the time we left the restaurant, she went back to being bored again…

And suddenly, I didn’t mind so much that I never worked at the Jersey Shore. Though my warehouse job wasn’t glamorous, at least I got a discount on sweaters to take back to school with me in the fall. Plus, I was rarely bored.

So, to stay with the New Jersey theme, I quote Sinatra: “Regrets, I have a few.” But not being that girl on the boardwalk? Yaaaaaawn. Not anymore.