leftunspoken's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Convenience and joy, 24-hours a day I love convenience stores. I mean like really love them. Just pulling into the parking lot makes me smile. I don't think I have a single memory involving a convenience store that isn't pleasurable. I'd never really thought about it before, but I was driving past one earlier and a little happy rush just washed right over me. They usually involve sugar fixes or nachos or coffee or road trips and how can that be bad, ever? I guess it began when I was little. I must start with my father who is possibly the biggest sugar freak in the entire world. Daddy has a coke and "a little somethin' sweet" every morning for breakfast. Daddy drinks iced tea (like any good Texas farm boy) but Daddy's iced tea could pass for sugar-water fit for the hummingbird feeder. Mama, used to wonder why her children's little baby eyes would roll back into their heads after Daddy gave us swallows out of his glass. My mother never had a child that wasn't sugar-wired half the time. When my twin and I were little we would run the roping/rodeo circuit with my dad. Daddy would be hot and tired, and having swallowed half the dust the cattle kicked in the air while he'd been chasing them, he'd be wanting a pop about the time we were heading to the stables to put up the horses. Hence the midnight convenience store stops. Never one to deprive his children, and always one to think joy was better when shared, Daddy'd pull into a 'GoodTime Store' or '7-11' and get us all cokes and candy bars. My twin and I are eight or nine years old, runnin' around dirty arenas with a bunch of bullriders and ropers till late at night then given caffeine and chocolate on the drive home. Perhaps that's when my night-owl body clock was wound. No wonder my mother used to hide in her room watching tv and let us have the run of the house and yard. Anyway, I just thought about all this while smiling like a dim-witted dog as I passed a 'Route 66'. Thought I'd share. 2:13 p.m. - May 05, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
||||||