As we exited out of a Target store parking lot in New Jersey a couple of weeks ago, we needed to go to another store that was down the road to the left.  However, the sign at the exit was clearly marked “No Left Turns”.

Well, of course there were no left turns allowed – this is NJ, after all. Chris and I immediately started singing,

No left turns in Jersey, no U-Turns at all…

It’s from a song entitled, appropriately enough, No Left Turns in Jersey, written and recorded by the group Eddie from Ohio. Having grown up in NJ, I remember laughing quite a bit when I first heard that song, as it is so true: so many intersections in NJ prohibit a straightforward left-hand turn and/or a U-Turn. Instead, you have to use a “jughandle”, which is a right-hand turn usually after (but sometimes before) the street you want to turn left on. I hadn’t realized until I lived outside of NJ for any length of time that this wasn’t common elsewhere in the U.S.

Of course, we weren’t at an intersection as we came out of the parking lot, so there was no jughandle to take. We had turn right onto the road, and then right again onto another road before eventually getting back to the original road in the proper direction.  The maneuvering may have included a cross between a K-and U-Turn at some point. I’m just saying, it’s possible.

Anyway, our visit to the Target store had already provided a moment that I didn’t quite understand. Now, it was a little bit early in the day, and I hadn’t any caffeine yet, and I did still have jet lag since it was the day after we arrived in the U.S. But still, do the signs on this door make any sense to you?

Target Store, Voorhees, New Jersey

And here I thought trips to the U.S. would be easier than going to another country, since I speak the local language fluently.

Or at least I used to.