confessions of a...

gas station attendant.

Sometimes you have those nights that just make sense to end with a dance party/sing-a-long. This one happened to be brought to you by the Beatles' Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club album and a few tricky customers.

A new Sonic opened just down the road from the store last week. Apparently this is a huge deal for NE Wisconsin because there has never been a Sonic in or around the area. (In fact, the closest was Indianapolis, Indiana...some friends of mine road tripped there in high school for some Sonic food on a whim. Crazies.) This new Wisconsin Sonic has required the local police to direct traffic, parking lots full of traffic cones asking cars to weave this way and that way to finally reach their destination of pull-up-and-order fun. Waiters/tresses skate around and bring you food and fun whilst you sit in your car and drop a fry under your seat. Of course in order to get here you had to wait in the biggest traffic pile-up you'll ever see in a 100 mile radius of Sonic. It's bizarre.

Late Wednesday evening an elderly gentleman came into the store to pay for some gasoline. He slowly made his way inside and up to the counter as I greeted him and asked how his night was going. (Surely I should've learned by now that to ask how someone's day is is not the safest question.) He grumpily paid for his gas and then began going on an on about how pissed he was about the whole Sonic fiasco.
"They skate to your car!", he grumbled as I questioned (to myself) why this is such a terrible thing.
"You can't even eat inside! You have to eat in your damn car!", he proclaimed.
I responded, "well sir, I think that's just how Sonic's are. It's all part of the experience."
"Well it's a damn lousy experience. What the hell are you supposed to do in winter! It's lousy!", he grumbled again.
Seeing that my conversation with this man was going to be a losing battle, I simply told him, "I'm sure that's part of the reason that they never had Sonic's in Wisconsin before. The whole idea simply doesn't make sense for a good deal of the year."
He got more upset. Realizing he wasn't upset at me I wished him a good night. He wasn't quite finished venting, "And they have those terrible commercials...two HOMOS sitting in a car talking about stupid shit. HOMOS. I don't want to see that. That's terrible. If you're gonna sell food, tell me about the food. Don't show me two homos in a car and expect me to eat at your place."
I think all I could muster up at this point was "uhhhh, ok."
(this is just one commercial with the two guys he was talking about.)

I spent the few minutes after he (finally) left thinking about how generations other than my own react to marketing. Apparently to this man, two men sitting in a car being witty or dumb means two gay men are being terrible role models for the rest of the world. Some people may not understand the type of marketing that they are using. Some may just not like it. I understand these things...but to assume so passionately that you're seeing two gay men interact and have that bother you so much should really make you question yourself and your own morality, not of those actors you're seeing. Social norms and trends are such interesting things to consider, debate, and watch unfold.
(end sociological rant.)

All that to say, I went to my car, got a Beatles CD and turned it up. I started dancing around between customers, replaying my favorite songs, humming along. My bliss multiplied as Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds came on and a man shopping started singing along, which made a guy in line start singing, which got passed on to someone who walked in the door. It was lovely.
The album ends with a reprise of Sargent Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club and a lot of silliness. As the last song played, someone opening up a door to the beer cooler yelled "SARGENT PEPPER'S LONELY HEARTS CLUUUUUUUUB BAAAAAAAND!"

It made my day a million times better. I'm thinking about making CDs of the Beatles anthology and having Beatles nights at the store. ...because really, who doesn't like the Beatles.