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I’d stopped here because I’d made the fatal error of trusting the Next Gas 75 Miles sign like a chump. Also, because I needed caffeine before I committed a felony. My latest playlist, titled “Vengeance and Emotional Support Bops,” had run its course an hour ago, and now I was running on fumes and spite. Which was unfortunate, because it had been working overtime to keep certain…thoughts under control.
This gas station looked like it had been built fifty years ago and immediately abandoned. There were three pumps, one ancient soda machine half full of Shasta…and a front-door chime that made a noise like a dying cartoon character when I entered.
Inside, I passed a dusty rack of postcards and a wire shelf of snacks that might’ve once been food-adjacent in the same way that a sea cucumber is technically an animal.
The cashier didn’t look up from his sudoku as I approached.
“Hi, do you have a bathroom key I could use?” I asked.
He pointed to a wooden spoon hanging from a string on the wall. A literal spoon. With the word “KEY” burned into it.
I took it solemnly, like a knight accepting an enchanted sword. Which, if it had been, would not be the strangest thing I’d done on this road trip.
When you’ve driven alone across the country for five straight days with nothing but gas station coffee, TikTok voice filters, and your past trauma for company, your brain starts doing weird things. Like convincing you that stopping at The World’s Largest Corn Dog outside of Des Moines was a reasonable use of time.
Spoiler: it wasn’t.
The corn dog was twelve feet long, mounted to a rusting pole, and looked like a war crime against fair food. I’d taken a selfie with it and added the caption: Me and my last healthy relationship. Then I sat in the car and ate a gas station taquito…which was another example of a poor life choice, since I was literally at a corn dog exhibit.
Another questionable stop had been the International Banana Club Museum, where I learned nothing and everything all at once. There were plaques and photos…and grown adults nodding seriously at bananas. I left changed, though I couldn’t explain how or why.
I wasn’t chasing enlightenment with any of these stops. I wasn’t even chasing fun. I think I just wanted proof that the world still had absurdity in it. That not everything had to be so tightly wound and miserable. That somewhere between heartbreak and survival, you could still pull over and laugh at a giant plastic banana someone had named Cheryl.
And now here I was at yet another absurd stop, except this one was necessary.
The bathroom door creaked when I pushed it open, like it had been waiting to be dramatic all day and finally found its moment.
I froze.
Look…if someone wanted to murder me while I was peeing in the middle of nowhere, this was the exact setting they would choose.
Flickering light overhead? Check.
Cracked mirror? Check.
A single sad paper towel hanging from the dispenser like a white flag of surrender? Check.
I stared at the shadows near the stall…but nothing moved.
“Just me,” I said to the air like all of this was fine. “One woman. Two kidneys. Hoping to keep both, please.”
The air didn’t respond, which felt rude but also encouraging.
The bathroom door didn’t close unless you leaned your full body weight against it, and it took two full heaves of my shoulder to make me feel secure enough to do my business in record time. I washed my hands in the freezing cold tap water, refusing to look in the mirror (I’ve seen The Ring; I know how this works), and bolted the second I heard a soft tap-tap from the ceiling tiles above me.
It was probably just a mouse, but it could just as easily have been a demon. If you thought about it, the line between the two was pretty thin.
Once back in the relative safety of the store, I grabbed a can of cold brew that promised to “slam your brain into gear” and a bag of neon-orange chips that claimed to taste like “sriracha fire.” Because apparently I wanted to cry and suffer more than I already had on this trip.
The cashier still didn’t move as I approached. He was in the same pose—elbows on laminate, pencil over sudoku, face set in the blank expression of someone who had long since made peace with their boredom.
I carefully hung the wooden spoon labeled KEY back on its little hook.
“Bathroom was…fine,” I said.
He didn’t look up. “Mm.”
“Unless you count the suspicious noises coming from above my head, which I am choosing not to investigate because I enjoy being alive. That feels more like a you job, anyway.”
