… you know, I just don’t get these Jersey guys… I really don’t… take Vinnie for instance, what an asshole… see, Jimbo asked me to come around every so often to make sure that his Bourbon didn’t get lonely while he was away… and that is just what I was doing the other night…

.. quietly minding my own business out on his deck, I was contentedly listening to my darling Patsy croon when Vinnie rounded the corner with a shovel in one hand and a half-burned cigar in the other…

Vinne: What da fuck?!… Who day a tink YOU are?… Where’s Jimbo?.. and where are your farookin’ pants?!

Me: … Howdy…. I’m Eric.. Jimbo is down in Florida hiding from gators and drinking vodka with a bunch of geriatrics that he knows… he asked me to…

… the burly Jerseyite curtailed my explanation.. Vinnie obviously didn’t like me almost immediately… which is a bit strange, really… usually it takes people a few hours before they decide they want to kick my ass…

Vinne: … You’re not from around deese parts, are ya, Ricky?… so Jimbo is in Florida, eh?… well, where are your farookin’ pants, redneck?…

… just between you and I, Vinnie was starting to get a bit active with the shovel… one could almost say that “brandishing it” was not far away on the horizon….

Me: …. Don’t get upset, sir… it’s all above-board, I promise… and you can trust Uncle Eri.. umm, never mind…. and yes, I’m from Tennessee… and my pants are on the kitchen table next to the Indian carry-out I’ll be enjoying for dinner…. but I’m no Redneck, sir… he’s this OTHER guy from up in Ohio somewhere…. see, I’m a guy Jimbo met from off of the internet… we bonded down in Helen, Georgia a few years ago over a few half-gallons of homemade Apple Brandy… and since then, well, we’ve been pals…

Vinnie: … Shaddup, redneck!… go inside and put your pants on… youse is making Jimbo’s deck look like a scene from “Deliverance”… wait… I tink I heard about dis from some guy over at The American Legion… are you the lowlife who painted Jimbo’s toenails red?…

Me… HAHA!… nope.. that wasn’t I, my New Jersey friend, that was someone else!… I just took the pictures!… hey, you want a Krisy Kreme donut?… I carried them all the way up to New Jersey from Tennessee to hand out as “Friendship Tokens“… here, have one… they’re yummy!…

… well, that is all I can remember right now…. well, that and the “ding” of that shovel smashing against my noggin…. I woke up a few hours ago laying duct-taped in the kitchen with a strange dream-like memory of guys with New Jersey accents laughing about some guy named Jimmy Hoffa and some parking lot… and something about Jimbo’s crawlspace and “paying off his markers“…. I must have been out for a day or so…

… I’m not sure I’m cut out to be chilling in Jimbo’s pad… but one thing is for sure… once I get a shower and clean off this duct tape residue, I’m keeping my damn pants on… these guys up here just don’t know how to relax…