Exit 8 on the highway, servicing Hightstown, East Windsor, and Twin Rivers New Jersey, is the place I grew up and will forever call my home. The area will always hold my favorite childhood memories, and every time I come back from college it is a breath of fresh air to be back in the town where it all started. Although it is a small town, there are a million things that only people in town will understand.

1. Hightstown, East Windsor, and Twin Rivers are all clumped together as one big town, but we all have our differences.

2. One does not walk into Target or Walmart without seeing at least three people they know.

3. You have a preferred pizza place because there's a 100 in town.

4. McDonald's was the hangout spot every Friday night after a home game.

5. We can get to the beach in 30 minutes.

6. Club 8 will always be there.

7. City Streets the Wednesday before Thanksgiving is where all graduated classes that are 21 years and older will be.

8. There will always be an argument over who has better bagels—Hightstown Bagels or Bagel Nosh.

9. Going to the movies and then Fridays was the spot in middle school on the weekends.

10. When someone says "let's go to the mall" you have to ask "which one?" because your decision depends on whether it's Quakerbridge or Freehold.

11. No one ever knows where Hightstown is until you tell them that it's near Princeton.

12. Everyone is somehow related.

13. There is a pizza place in every single strip mall.

14. We knew the Americana before it was "one of the best diners."

15. Everyone knows Assunpink.

16. River rats will always be the nickname for those who lived in Twin Rivers.

17. We hate West Windsor.

18. And Notre Dame.

19. Peddie too. Just because they're in our town.

20. The high school is "Hightstown High School" but all three "towns" go there, and it's technically in East Windsor.

21. If you're not hanging out in someone's house, you're probably hanging out in a parking lot or park.

22. A handful of your graduating class went to Rutgers, Rider, or Rowan.

23. Philly and NYC are a short ride away.

24. You probably went to the Learning Tree, Cox Preschool, YMCA, or Busy Bee Nursery School.

25. We truly are one big family and when something happens or someone passes, the entire town comes together.