Our journey was pleasant from San Diego towards St. George, Utah. We passed through a beautiful mountainous area of Arizona and then entered Utah. One of the sparkling features of the state is the abundance of natural beauty, whether traveling along the freeway or country roads.
We are learning that a person has to avoid developing bad habits—this leads to difficulties and problems. In a moment of catharsis, we have the need to share a problem with you. We would ask that you not mention this to our children as it is embarrassing and has occurred more often than we would like to admit. However, if nothing else, we ought to be forthright with anyone making the effort to read about our journey.
Each state has its own character. For instance, in Arizona we come across the ‘Thirst Buster’, it’s the ‘Big Gulp’ in 7-11’s in California and so on. For those who are not well informed, we are referring to the soda fountains at gas stations and convenience stores. On Sunday, we walked up to the fountain and looked at the array of sizes—12, 16, 24, 32, 44 and 54 ounces. Can you imagine so much Diet Coke? When facing such a situation, we feel a knocking at the knees and the Yetzer Horah cheering us to go for it. Our editor always acts with decorum and suggests that if we are very thirsty we should select the sixteen ounces container. Great disappointment. It now means a negotiation. Pleading and begging follows and we decide that we should not be greedy. After all, we are already grandparents and must set a fine example for Ellie and still maintain a decent standard for our children. We forego the fifty-four ounces and select the forty-four ounces only, instead. We feel we are making a great sacrifice that is fitting—only forty-four ounces of Diet Coke. (No ice inside either as we like to drink it straight.)
We struggle out of the store trying to balance the heavy weight. We hope that we are not going to strain the car with this additional burden. After an hour, we begin to get the feeling that much of the Diet Coke wants to be somewhere else. We think it’s bored and wants to leave the bladder. However, we are in the middle of the desert in Nevada. It is totally barren but for thousands of slot machines. We can’t stop on the freeway as there is a traffic problem on the other side of the road. The cars are backed-up for miles, meaning we would be unfavorably ‘exposed’ to spectators. We put the foot flat on the accelerator and begin our search for relief. We are sure you know the feeling. Although it is embarrassing, we think everyone has had this experience. We begin to move from discomfort to a little pain with wriggling and then jumping, all the time racing ahead and looking for the magic ‘potty’. Finally, we see a ‘Gas Station’ advertising the great ‘Thirst Quencher’ and restrooms. We fly in, jump out the car and immediately feel burned by the very hot air. Later, we find that the temperature was 115%. Wow! We are now feeling the pain from both ends.
A half-sprint gets us to the door of the store and behold - it happens! We look down and… nothing. It is a phenomenon of Nevada during July. The extreme heat has evaporated all surplus body liquids.
We are obviously not learning the lessons of life because notwithstanding the discomfort, we cannot forgo the ‘thirst buster’ and its fellow drinks.
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