Originally Posted by
Buster Highmen
Did your mom collect gas station kitchen knives?
The kind with flimsy serrated blades and cheesy plastic handles that sometimes came off after too many hot rinse cycles?
Did she reproach any suggestion of getting gas at lower prices rather than obtaining another matching blade? A keening in her eye?
I remember long legs of winter rolling through 2 lane tree bordered highways of northern Wisconsin where outposts were sparse, eschewing a stop when the gas gauge loomed left near an inferior mart, veering off into the night with the proper petroleum purveyor only a few dark leagues away. Or hot sticky rubber heat dream slaps down waffling concrete ribbons and off ramps to the plastic neon slushies and straws.
But woe unto occupants of a car that had stopped, but the blade had gone missing, slipping between the textured vinyl seats to join single socks and innocent ignorance.
What satisfaction, what muted glee shone on adding another knife to the set.