《BurgerPunk: Pizza Time》13. Snacks at the Gas Station

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There he stood. In the middle of the gas station. Staring off into what he would consider nothing in particular, thinking about nothing in particular. He was standing next to the small section with the overpriced bottles of engine oil and small scented trees. The black ones were his favorite. He found the jokes online about their freshness funny and so he bought one one day. Eventually his ironic thought turned into an ironic act that turned into a sincere act that turned into a sincere thought. Now he actually enjoyed the little black tree smell. He thought it legitimately smelled fresh. He grabbed a pack of them and continued to stare off into the distance.

An elderly lady was near the front cash register slowly playing scratch offs with a dime in one hand and a jug of whole milk in the other. A twenty something was near the drink fridge comparing the ingredients of two diet energy drinks. The cashier was watching soccer on his phone. He still couldn’t remember why he was there.

He had already filled up the tank of his 2005 Ford Focus. He paid for it with a debit card at the pump. He couldn’t remember why he was there. He walked over to the snack isle. He enjoyed the Italian snack mixes with the rye chips. He grabbed the smallest bag he could find and made sure it wasn’t the mustard flavor. He had once bought a family size bag at the grocery store without checking the label, only to find out when he got home that it was an unsurmountable quantity of mustard flavored snack mix.

He grabbed one of the little duo packs of the cakes that looked like a zebra. He didn’t particularly enjoy the flavor of them, but there was a nostalgia to them. When he bites into the plastic icing it’s as if he’s five years old again, playing in the front yard with his dog and his pop, drinking soda that would eventually cause cavities and eating little zebra-colored cakes while running away from the lawn sprinkler. He liked the fact that a gas station could give him the closest thing to comfort he’s experienced in nearly two decades.

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He still couldn’t remember why he was there. He had cigarettes. There was coffee in the car. At this point he was just browsing the wares for some semblance of fun. He imagined the fit dude-bro looking at energy drinks was an engineering student. Maybe a chemistry major. Dietary science? It would be the only reason that would explain why he wasn’t just getting shitty black coffee. If he were that guy, he would get shitty black coffee. But if that guy were him, he would already have shitty black coffee in the car, waiting for him. Slowly cooling down to the point that you can taste the bitter, long lasting notes of disappointment that fuels reality slowly setting back in after a bite of nostalgia cakes that look like zebras.

The lights above him were starting to be uncomfortable. His rate of blinking began to increase as he held more and more small snack foods trying to remember why he was there. He began his walk to the counter to check out.

“Howdy, bud.” He said to the clerk watching soccer, standing a good two feet above him from where the counter was positioned. The clerk looked through the shatter proof plexiglass.

“Good afternoon, sir,” the clerk said without making eye contact, “did you find everything alright?”

“I can’t seem to remember what I needed from inside the store, but other than that, I’m fine.”

“Very good, sir.”

The little bag with a smiley face on it and a ‘Thank you’ and ‘Have a nice day’ wasn’t particularly endearing, but he like the fact that they were at least trying in that false senserity of a corporate marketing team kind of way. It gave him a sense of normalcy. He swiped his debit card at the little machine and hit some buttons so that his fake money could go through some fake wire to a fake spreadsheet to a fake bank to pay for fake interest on fake loans to fake investors.

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As he walked out the door he noticed a sign on the window pane that said ‘Bathroom for customers only’ and that’s when he remembered why he went into the store.

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