the highway was covered with dispensed ice falling from a gaping hole. my hands gripping the first coffee i ever bought, a bitter, warming styrofoam. while receiving assurance that the car is all-wheel drive, i sense the tires slipping from the passenger seat. after an hour of driving we reach the halfway point of our journey, ashford, ohio. just another afternoon ice storm in the midwest. we take the nearest exit. as we pull in to the parking lot of the gas station i feel a little anxious, maybe bored. i pull a door open of the convenience store and decide that today i will play the lottery.
i take a roundabout way to get to the cashier (a young looking teenager, with human gap teeth and blonde hair on his chin) because a couple was squeezing through the tight aisle stocked with candy bars and bubble gum. i tell the kid behind the counter that i want a scratch off ticket. he pulls one from behind him, says he looks at this particular one everyday. it hung upside down as he tore it from the rest. he slides it across the counter in a way that made me feel guilty of something, his smirk and persistent eye contact alienates me from the interaction. "do you see it?" he asks. not knowing exactly what he means, but noticing that betty boop was posing upside down with her cleavage popping out of her tight dress. i could not see what he wanted me to. "look at her chest, i look at this everyday." he insists i look at her cartoon boobs though i can hardly look at his face. i see two perfect circles that eventually look like a male's genitalia when a long red torso is adding in the middle. i say something along the lines of "would you look at that" or "that's crazy, man;" words that mean nothing. i paid him two dollars and left the store detached from what was simply a conversation between two human beings.
after scratching off a winner, i had to make the decision to just keep the card and look at it everyday, and think about that kid or cash it in so i could buy more coffee and styrofoam.
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