COLUMN: Spring break in the 'burbs

From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '00 From Ariel Horn's, "Candy from a Stranger," Fall '00Some people say that suburban New Jersey is no place to spend spring break if you're searching for tropical fruit drinks, a good tan and lots of nudity. Until two weeks ago, I was certain that my spring break in suburbia would not compare to my friends' stories about "hooking up with this totally hot guy in Mexico as we slathered one another with coconut oil." Until two weeks ago, I was sure I was doomed to suburban New Jersey -- home of the minivan, land of the cul-de-sac. And until two weeks ago, I thought I was fated to a spring break limited to New Jersey's state pastimes: going to the mall and the movies and pelting large rocks at unsuspecting squirrels. Oh, how wrong I was. Unwilling to condemn myself to a pathetic spring break in New Jersey, I made it my mission to create a virtual spring break, which would synthetically produce all the effects of a real spring break in a tropical location -- but on a local level. It would not be a spring break spent watching My Dog Skip repeatedly at the movie theater as I had planned. It would not be a spring break spent at the Short Hills Mall paying $5 for a mochaccino. It would be a spring break to remember, and not simply for being the only kid in the neighborhood to peg "Skippy" the crazy squirrel. The first stop in creating my "alternative" spring break was to get myself in the right mood. Promptly, I turned the heater in my house up to 85 degrees and put on my bathing suit and sunglasses. I sipped a fruit smoothie as I sprawled out on my blanket in the middle of the living room, waiting to get a tan from the overhead lighting. Although I had turned on some loud techno music to give myself the "broken eardrum" effect that I assume would happen at a Jamaican club, something was still missing. The heat was getting to me. I left my spot in the living room (though I strewed my belongings out to make sure no other opportunistic spring breakers might take my spot). I hopped into the bathtub/"spa" and enjoyed the fact that I didn't have to worry about other people having peed in the water, as I often worry while swimming in particularly warm spots in the ocean. (You know who you are, you sickos. Grow up.) But something still wasn't right. The overhead lighting in my house was not giving me the mocha tan I had hoped for; I remained, despite my hours under my house's Pier Import lighting, as milky as a lattZ. I decided then to fully compromise any self-respect I had ever had by going where I had never gone before -- to a tanning salon. I was finally a real Jersey Girl. I walked inside and was greeted by a man who appeared to be orange. After 25-year-old "Ray," the owner/cancer merchant, explained to me that tanning salons are actually less damaging to the skin than real sunlight, I was directed to my tanning/skin cancer room. "Well," said Ray, "why don't you just take off all your clothes and we'll get you started!" I giggled that immature "some random person is asking me to get naked" laugh and smiled. I couldn't help but feel that my virtual spring break had reached its apex. After all, isn't being told by a random twentysomething guy to take off all my clothing pretty much the equivalent of a random hook-up? Isn't lying naked in an unfamiliar room in an unfamiliar bed part of what spring break is all about? I tried to memorize Ray's features so as to fabricate the perfect "spring break hook-up" story (equivalent only, in history, to the "camp boyfriend/girlfriend" stories about 12-year-old boys and girls who don't really exist). As I lay in my tanning bed for 10 minutes feeling my skin begin to grow cancerous, I reflected on my break. It may have been New Jersey, but I was still getting a tan, had drunk my fill of fruit smoothies and met the random guy about whom I could lie to my friends. It wasn't paradise, but it was as close as suburban New Jersey could get. I left my tanning bed when my time was up and said goodbye to Ray. "Was it good for you?" he asked hopefully. "It was? weird," I replied. Ray looked defeated, as most men do when hearing those three horrible words. Ray and I probably won't keep in touch; we had our moment, and now, it's over. Ah, spring break -- who said it couldn't happen in suburban New Jersey?