You might be asking, “But Justin, how can the quality of these dishes remain static from gas station to gas station?” To that I say, "I don’t know. These are meals that find you where you are, all across America: Americana, encapsulated in food.Ī gas station food item is an ambassador of whichever podunk, side-of-the-highway establishment it comes from. Maybe a quick meal before you go to a football game. It’s a food that you grab along the way, a surprise option en route to a day on the river or at the lake. You see, the magical thing about gas station food is that it’s almost always an unplanned meal. Though I may not have been good at the job, getting close to Paula was the best thing I did that summer, because she would cook me anything I wanted, giving me my formal education in gas station foods. The fry cook Paula and I used to get in trouble for smoking cigarettes next to the broken-down ice machine out back. I believe I was hired because I was the only person tall enough to change out letters on the marquee underneath the old CITGO sign by the road. I was not good at taking orders, nor was I particularly good at sweeping or washing dishes. A few months before I moved away from home, I had locked down the job at Big Mike’s, set off a highway that takes you into the Smoky Mountains.
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