Our Kentucky Drinking Problem

We drove through the night to get through as far as Lexington, Kentucky.  With some desire to see the Kentucky horse-racing culture and tour the distilleries in the seat of bourbon territory, we wished there was more time before graduate student orientation. We decided that our time could better be used for settling into our new home and shopping for essentials.  That put our much anticipated stop at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, TN too far out of our way to be comfortable with the timing of things.  Perhaps it will be for honeymoon, part two.

Thornton's image lifted from betaled.com

Most of Kentucky was unremarkable to us while we traveled through past dark.  We patronized the smallest backwoods gas station at one point.  We also filled our tank at the largest quick mart complete with a walk-in “Beer Cave.”  At the time, we believed Thornton’s to be the single greatest place for fuel and a snack.  It was getting to be late in the night, and the brilliantly lit store seemed to be an ideal pit stop for an extended stretch of our legs.  The gas station was running a promotion underselling McDonalds with 89-cent sodas of any size with zillions of choices to add shots of extra flavor.  It had a large selection of snacks, hot food, and candy, and prided itself with pristine bathrooms and bathroom signage guaranteed to satisfy the customer.  If not, a button could be pressed to alert the clerk to the problem. 

Amy shopped around and pondered sugar-caffeine drink choices for the rest of the sleepy ride, while David took a bathroom break.  The stone-like sentinel of the gas station watched her as she went in and out of the aisles.  With Amy the only one in the store, it was more than creeping her out. When David came back, a customer had retrieved a box of beer from the beer cave, only to have the display collapse on him.  David gave him a hand.  Then Amy took a trip to the bathroom and came back to find David sipping on soda.  It was a rather flat and tasteless cola.  We notified the shop clerk.  He was a tall, lanky and humorless man with an iron stare. He reluctantly disappeared to the back to presumably shake some machinery.  When he returned, the drink was no more improved, so we tried another soda dispenser. Still flat and tasteless, we poured it out and tried another soda flavor altogether. More tasteless slop. Our final attempt led us to doctor it with flavor shots… turning the concoction into something more like medicine rather than energy drink.  We hate to waste things and didn’t feel like pouring it away after all the trying, so we went with our cup to check out.

The clerk, on his platform protected by a fortress of plexiglass enclosed cigarettes, insisted on charging us for two drinks instead of one, which left us scratching our heads.  Sodas are 89-cents any size, right? We had a small cup in our hands, one-fourth the size of the largest cup, and had probably poured out only a few sips of the tasteless swill. We had also just dropped $40 at the pump.  After pointing this out to the rational adult attempting to overcharge us, he conceded... at least we thought he would.  "You kept drinking from it after you put soda in.  TWO SODAS!" Our logic was no match for his iron, uncarbonated fist.  The lack of sleep left us without the wits to just leave the soda on the counter and walk away.  Instead, we paid up, but couldn’t help but feel entirely misled and jilted… for the next few hundred miles.  The full cup of regret-flavored frankensoda taunted us from the cupholder as we drove in silence.  It was then we decided we would never let anyone take advantage of us.  No matter how small the amount, we would rather stick by our principles than pay for lower management on a power trip to railroad us.  When we arrived in Lexington, we poured the brew out into the parking lot, checked into our room, and had a little bit of Schlafly. Oh, how we missed St. Louis.