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A Break in the Day at the Filling Station

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 It’s closing in on noon and we’re sitting in the car at the local gas station finishing up the grocery store salads on the orange plastic trays, from home, resting in our laps.  It’s a nice spring day in Texas and we’re pulled in by an embankment where there are trees above us and we can hear some birds in addition to the Prague Symphony playing Mozart softly on the radio.  Next on the agenda is a nice cup of coffee in the Kwik Café.

 Sometimes we buy a couple of delicious fried chicken breasts and make sandwiches with buns from home since they only have little dinner rolls not large enough to hold the chicken.  The 5 or 6 tables are now open for dining as well as the counter, but most of us are still wearing masks inside except at the tables.  We really like to lunch or have coffee here as most of the patrons are “real” down home Texans and the coffee is better and cheaper than the coffee houses where the tourists and PC people hang out.

 So now it’s time to amble in, pick a table, brew our cuppas and see who shows up today.  It’s a busy place.  All sorts of vendors come by to replace their stock, in fact there was a huge Budweiser truck parked in the street and two men were having to haul the beer up the driveway to the store where one would transfer it to a smaller dolly and zip through the aisles into the back room.  He was a sturdy, but slight young man, and it was like watching a fast moving farce as he entered from stage right, zipped through the aisles and all at once he appeared again at stage right with another full dolly.  He worked so swiftly and efficiently I had to congratulate him as he left and flashed me a huge smile over his shoulder.   Then the elderly granny with the cane I saw earlier came into view.  She had seemed to navigate well then but now she was burdened with purchases, her handbag and the cane.  A young man in the social distancing register line quickly came to her aid and helped her to the door.  And seeing that wasn’t good enough, went on to help her into her car while all the time she was expressing her grateful thanks.  Soon he was back in line to pay for his purchases having done his good deed for the day.

All sorts of purposeful people on their noon break were now milling around checking out the lunch possibilities.  Three young men, with their drinks and chips, were chatting by the MW on its low shelf while two of them, squatting down, reheated their entrees from home.  As they easily resumed standing, I remembered back in the day, when I used to be able to do that too.  Now, geared up after our enjoyable break, it was time to finish up the coffee, gas up the car and head back to the supermarket to tackle the week's grocery shopping.


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