Right down the street from our house is a little Shell gas station that I frequent. We live just far enough away from anything else that it is a pain to drive into town and we avoid it if we can. The station is all about convenience and doing as little as possible to get the drink you need so badly.

Everything in the store is overpriced. They know that I don’t want to drive into town, and they take advantage. If I do decide one day that I am going a mile down the road to the Quick Trip because they cost almost half as much, it isn’t a big deal to them because they will make up for it next week when I fall back into being lazy again. Quick Trip even has employees that speak English, say hello and thank you, and everything is clean!

I honestly didn’t realize how the whole lazy system works until a event that happened recently. I knew everything was overpriced, but I just wrote it off as “sucking a big one,” and told myself not to come back. Yesterday, as I was paying for my overpriced Diet Dr. Pepper, I realized that when the guy behind the counter on the phone gives me my change, he doesn’t say how much he is giving me. He makes a shape with his mouth, that looks like he could be saying anything, and then nods his head.

I though maybe it was just a one time thing perhaps. Maybe he was stoned or something and was just acting strangely. Next time I went in I paid close attention and noticed that his mouth did the same thing, and no actual noise came out. My change was five cents, five, a number I could read off someone’s lips, and something I wasn’t getting from his. I was getting a “gooeehhghe.”

I pay more to save a mile and get Gooeehhghed at.

Sometimes I wish I lived next to a river, and the fastest way into town was a three day boat and a half day carriage ride. I wouldn’t have an excuse not to shop around and get the best price since I had already traveled so far.

Then again, when the weather is like it is right now, I am thankful for my nice heated ride down the street to the Convenient Shell station.

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