my arkansas bathroom experience.
since I’ve been coughing all week, i’ve been drinking extra water. i had a water yesterday afternoon in mississippi. my bladder filled up in mississippi. we drove through tennessee and into arkansas before we could convince them to stop. wanting to combine bathroom, gas and eating stops, exit four looked like a good exit. we passed it. we pulled off on exit five, which had a hotel and a citgo. i warned steve (who also needed to use the restroom) that he was going to need to exit the vehicle with astounding speed because time was of utter essence for me. i bolted out of the durango, dodged puddles in the pothole strewn asphalt and after a bit of confusion over the only usable door being the exit door, i entered the gas station like a woman on a mission. because i was. i looked left, i looked right. i looked in the corner. there appeared to be no bathroom. the line for the one cashier was long, so i had to wait for the people to disperse. three of us waited in eager anticipation for the answer to our time sensitive question. is there a restroom anywhere?perhaps we should have taken the look on her face as a warning. but as we made our way around the outside corner of the building to an unlit area, steve said, oh, this can’t be good. we see a door standing open and after letting me know that we’d found it, i gave a little sigh of relief. perhaps i shouldn’t have. friends, let me introduce you to the absolute worst bathroom in the state of arkansas. or as baby steve put it, the worst in the state of earth.
through the dim light of the gas station neon, i see the light switch. i flip it. oh, you’re kidding me, i say. the light doesn’t work. i’m knowing that i do not have many options at this point, so i say screw it. i run in, noticing first the position of the toilet and the toilet paper, and i shut the door. i wade through two inches of rain water (please humor me and believe that it was water with me) and find the toilet. i reach for the toilet paper and as i go to rip it off the roll… the whole dumb thing falls off the wall and into the water. you are kidding me. my mom and barb are outside asking me if i want a flashlight. i let them know that what i could really use are some kleenex. my mom opens the door and hands me one kleenex. it’s good enough i decide, as i can feel the water creeping up my pants. i wade to higher ground where the water isn’t so deep and i open the door for a bit of light. i reach for the soap and find none. i rinse my hands, thankful that i go nowhere without hand sanitizer. i reach for a paper towel. do you think that there were any? of course not, my faithful readers. because as i said, this was the worst bathroom known to man.
i found myself thankful not only for the opportunity to feel a bit better, but that i had kept a pair of jeans out of my bag to change into when we got back to minnesota. after changing into my much less comfortable pants, i thanked gary for stopping. because truly, I was grateful.
posted by julie @ 4:45 AM
2 Comments:
As I recall, that's pretty much all Arkansas.
well, then i'm glad we only stopped once in arkansas.
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