Satire: Thoughts While on the Road

Thinking of ice, fountain drinks and bathrooms.

BathroomPhoto byCreative Commons: dankeck

As I’ve mentioned previously, my wife, son and I are moved from Florida back to Oklahoma. We spent two days enduring that drive. It did give me time to do some deep thinking. I thought deep thoughts of fountain drinks, ice and bathrooms. If you look very closely, you will find a link between those three. I’ll start with ice.

Has the southeastern portion of the United States lost the recipe for ice?

The two days were long and tiring. They were made worse by a lack of ice. When we stopped to check into our motel Tuesday night we were looking forward to a cold drink. That would have been much easier if the motel/dive we stayed at had a working ice machine.

While they didn’t have a working ice machine, they did have a functional soft drink machine that would spit out a 12 ounce can of pop for $1.75. Maybe it was just marketing genius on their part.

Continuing the lack of ice theme, we stopped at Burger King the next day. I placed my order, went over to get my drink and discovered both ice machines were empty. Hoping to get a resolution to the problem, I informed an employee who told me, “We don’t have any ice.”

They did, however, have lukewarm pop to go with my burger. Lukewarm drinks and a side of apathy. Nice.

And about those fountain drinks….

Why have restaurants and fast-food places decided it’s ok to sell drinks that would gag a maggot? Apparently, it’s against some state laws to actually put syrup in a soft drink. I’m looking at you Wawa. Wawa’s fountain soft drinks were mediocre at best, but now they can’t even aspire to reach the lofty heights of mediocrity.

But they are far from alone on this front. Anymore, whenever you get a fountain soft drink you have to ask yourself, “Do I feel lucky? Well, do I, punk?” I guess “punk” was superfluous in this case. But there needs to be more of an outcry about this. Not only are soft drink prices going up, but the quality is also going down. Is there some kind of drink syrup shortage I’m unaware of?

And those bathrooms…

I have to acknowledge that Florida really does have a good system of rest stops. They are generally clean, well monitored and have well-stocked vending machines, but I was puzzled by a sign I saw on the outside of one of them. It said, “Fire Extinguisher Inside.”

It did make me wonder about the necessity of that. It also made me wonder about the dietary habits of Floridians. Was there a Taco Bell nearby?

But my favorite bathroom sign of all time was inside a bathroom at an Oklahoma truck stop. Inside the men’s room machine’s sold various sundry items for the trucker who may be looking for love. The way this was presented to me struck me as unique.

The sign said, “Your Health Care Center.” If your health care center is located in a truck stop bathroom, you really need to evaluate your HMO. So, is the stall your ER?

An uppity truck stop bathroom is really had to take.