Monday, November 29, 2010

Gas Station Blues

My cell phone is a dying piece of poo, and I’m getting a new one on Wednesday (thank the Lord in Heaven above for rebates!), so I apologize for the pictures in this post in advance.  I hope my explanations will help you along the way.
Anyone who has travelled with children knows that one of the most important things to keep in mind is where the closest bathroom is.  This is also true, of course, if you travel with a grown man who has a bladder like an eighty-year-old woman, but that’s another story.
On our mini-vaca a couple of weeks ago, we got the “I have to go potty RIGHT NOW” yell from the backseat, so Scott dutifully pulled off at the next exit with a gas station and drove us here:
That’s right.  There was no sign for the name of the store and no sign reading “gas.”  Just cold beer.  When we got out of the car in the dimly lit parking lot, a man who was clearly no stranger to Jim Beam and outlaw country music walked out of the building to the end of the sidewalk.  After scanning our family to make sure we were up to his standards (re: Caucasian), he walked back in and sat behind the counter.  The front door had this:

Fantastic apostrophe usage!  So, we obviously had to buy something even though we just stopped to let our 5yo pee, which proved to be challenging since everything on the shelves was years old.  (The boys ended up getting some Haribo gummies, and Scott grabbed a Coke, while Grizzly Adams stared us down with his one working eye.)  I decided I should probably pee, too, so that we didn’t have to stop again, and this is what greeted me in the stall:
The entire bathroom was Pepto-pink, and I could get lube and “dotted” condoms all for a dollar!  That’s something I’ve never seen at Dollar Tree.  And better yet, this is what greeted me at the sink:
AYFKMRN?  A "Precautionary Boil Water Notice?"  (The highlighter was effective in letting me know that it was just a possibility that this water could give me dysentary.)  At this point, I wanted to vomit. As I weighed the pros and cons of washing my hands in water that needed to be boiled to drink it (I’m not effing camping!  I’m going to the bathroom in a public place!), I almost started crying when I thought about my two children marinating in the men’s room germs.  (I would have bought more anti-bacterial sanitizer, but SURPRISE--the cold beer store didn’t sell any.)
I browsed the shelves while I waited for the boys to finish up and found this hanging on the wall:
Wow.  Just wow.  All new employees must be able to read and write in ENGLISH!  I'm sure people are just beating down the doors for this lovely employment opportunity.
We took our candy and Coke to the counter, and while Mr. KKK growled through his meth-ridden teeth, I caught this little gem:
“No drinking on property!” (and in smaller letters, “It’s the law!”) And don’t you think that’s a bit confusing?  I mean, the store is called “cold beer,” after all.
Fun times!

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