Ugly.

It really shouldn’t take so much to get a fountain drink, 3/4 Coke Zero and 1/4 Cherry Coke. Sometimes, even often, it does, but it really shouldn’t.

Wawa is a brand of convenience stores in the area, and they’re great. They have a full-service, 24-hour deli, cheap gas, bright lights and surprisingly little murder. They also have soda fountains, with at least a dozen choices, and a 32 oz. supply of their beverages only costs a buck. Par for the course, I know, but it’s a cozy place. It’s one of the first places that felt like home to me 5 years ago, when I first planted my shitty little flag in Philly.

I didn’t get to feel like I was at home tonight, largely because I’ve seen the film Final Destination. Between where I was and the nowhere I was going, there was only one Wawa with a gas station, and parked there was a 18-wheeler gas rig. This is something that occurs–what?–twice, three times a week? At least? Common occurence, I’m sure, but I got that shitty “oh, I might explode” feeling as I neared the store.

People were on fire, screaming and holding their children. SUVs exploded, one after another, a chorus line of explosions that fired shrapnel like missiles through the store windows. All of the people inside were covered with fresh piercings and fragments, glass and metal now making up percentages of these people to such an extent that they could no longer be fully considered human. And then the ball of flame blew them up and they died dead dead.

I passed the store and got held up at the red light that almost immediately follows that Wawa’s location. It’s a long light, and nothing blew up; the guy even tugged up his hose and went on his merry way as I waited for the green. No shrapnel, no blood, no fire, no anguish and no burning parents holding their burning children in one horrifying final embrace. Basically, a lot of people just got their fountain sodas, a bag of chips, Marlboro lights, a Red Bull. The light turned green.

I was about two miles on down the road and saw a Shell station, an unassuming little strip of pumps and not much else. The store was typical and therefore inadequate, but since all of these places have soda fountains, I pulled over and got my gas. Two cents cheaper here!

Inside, a sad man with a bad comb-over said “sir” far too many times as people looked at their products. They stared at the counter, their Extra gum, their Powerball tickets, their 22 oz. of the ”finest Arabica beans” coffee. Sir, they nod, words, sir, money, words, sir, change, sir, a grunt, sir, they’re gone.

There isn’t a whole lot to look at in a convenience store if you’re sober. It’s the same 12 kinds of chips, the same Coca-Cola and Pepsi armies of soda, with occasional off-brands peppered in, depending on the neighborhood (the worse the neighborhood, the better the selection of beverages, oddly enough), and the rows of candy and gum and energy gum and protein-packed fiber squares.

So I had to feign interest in pretzels as I watch the “sir” routine play out an additional 3 or 4 times. Pretzel thins, sir, sticks, sir, sourdough, sir, no one looks at anyone, sir.

I finally got out of there, with a 12 oz. can of Pepsi Max; their soda fountain was broken. In lining up to pay, I finally got a good look at the guy, and my rash judgment was “ugly.” It just happened, and is nothing of which I’m proud.

“Sir” became a comma, a pause in a conversation of nonsense and didn’t mean anything by the time I finally reached the counter. It was really cool, though, to notice that he only said it once to me.

I got to look this guy in the eyes, and my judgment disappeared. Everything was there, just as it was before. All of the things that brought forth my rash judgment were there, but not. His smile was crooked and missing a few teeth. His face didn’t have the symmetry so often desired in…well, everything, I guess. But he had incredible eyes, eyes that know so much more than I do.

“I don’t like this job at all, but I love my family.”

The guy was beautiful. He needed to get someone to fix that fucking soda fountain, but he was beautiful.

I made it about another five miles down the road when I saw a rather large Sunoco gas station. Brighter than normal, larger, more diversely packed with treats and gloves and even gas caps. It was empty, save for myself, the cashier, his 364 Facebook friends keeping him company on his laptop and a 6-foot-5 state trooper. Bright, empty, police presence, clean and new: must go in and get 3/4 Coke Zero, 1/4 Cherry Coke. Maybe even take a piss.

I went in and looked first for a knit cap. The air’s turning here in Philly, and I can usually get a cap for a buck or two in one of these places, one that will replace the one I keep magically losing each year. I’m on my 5th this year. That’s fucking bullshit.

Anyway, I was out of luck on the cap, so I got back to task on picking up that soda of mine. I extracted a 32 oz. cup and began mixing the concoction when I heard “bigger” seemingly birth itself into the universe from a place about 6, 7 inches up from my left shoulder. I turned, and there’s the state trooper.

I finally got a good look at the guy, and my rash judgment was “ugly.”

I must’ve had a “what the fuck fucking language are you speaking to me?” look on my face, because he thumbed his cup like the hammer on the gun I don’t trust him to be smart enough to use, and said, “bigger!” He had the 44 oz. cup, and I was so proud.

His face was symmetrical. He didn’t have a bad comb-over or missing teeth. His eyes weren’t filled with emotion, but they were both looking in the same direction: my smaller cup.

“Sir, I have a lot of driving to do tonight. If I get the bigger one, I’m going to have to use it to hold my piss.”

While not especially funny, one would expect a tiny, know-what-you-mean chuckle, right? Nothing. This guy was a blank slate, a golem waiting for the government to carve him, a wedding ring wrapped around a 44 oz. cup.

Someone fucks this guy? Someone fucks this guy. It got me thinking a lot, as I hopped back into my truck and drove away from the cleanliness of a surprisingly nasty Sunoco experience. The one thing that most often came to mind was that whole “women are suckers for the uniform” argument. Thinking of that guy, all I could think of was that, if that old adage was true, then the bigger truth of it is that “a lot of women are just suckers.”

A lot of guys, too; hell, isn’t it a male power structure that has allowed the requirements to serve in law enforcement to become so pitifully low that a buffoon who…you know, I don’t have a fucking clue what that dope meant by “bigger!”

Run your ten-minute mile, don’t have HIV when you sign up, pass a test that cowers in the cloak of “aptitude” while truly measuring things like obedience and independent reasoning. There’s a cop: not every cop, but a cop.

Have people think you’re beneath them. Keep your eyes down so they can’t see your life. Say “sir” too often and don’t give a shit about the soda fountain. You don’t even have to take a test; you just need the balls to leave most of your family behind and the will to not hang yourself when the country you leave that family for barely wants you there in the first place. There’s a cashier: not every cashier, but a cashier.

Drive around for hours, looking for a particular soda. Avoid it through irrational fears and make the quest for it an adventure through suburbia. Cast dispersions, insults and on-the-fly assessments of people you’ll never know along the way. Don’t even think of the disgust you brought out into the world until you get home. That’s ugly. I’m ugly.