Around here, Wawa is really the only place to go if you have need of a convenience store. The stores are clean, the workers are more often courteous, the food is fresh, and their gas is the cheapest at the pump. Everything else plays second fiddle to Wawa. Especially Turkey Hill.
The think about Turkey Hill is I've never seen one that wasn't the armpit of America. Even the ones whose masonry hasn't yet solidified are the grungiest-looking place you'd ever stoop to buying food. I don't know what it is about those places, but they must paint on the grime to get them to look like that.
For some reason, the grimey folks are also attracted to these Turkey Hills. I've seen some of the most stooped-over, kicked in the teeth, married my sister, addicted to crack, haven't bathed in days, homeless if not for ma's trailer folks at Turkey Hill. It's like when the Downingtown Farmer's Market closed down, they all decided to go on an endless road trip, stopping at every Turkey Hill across the country. You will never see a suit in Turkey Hill, and if you did, you would advise him to run before someone decides he's The Man and "gits 'im".
There are only two reasons I have to stop at Turkey Hill. First, it's on the way between work and Abby's school, and so two days a week it's the only convenient place to get a soda or junk food after a long day at the office. The other reason is for the personal pizzas. I don't know what they put in the sauce (probably the manager hiding his coke when the cops stop in) but it's pretty darn good.
It was this afternoon on one of these rare occasions that I was craving pizza that I stopped into Turkey Hill and was waylayed by one of the gas-pumping customers.
This woman was wearing some kind of oversized lavendar tank top, and her hair fell down past her shoulders, thankfully covering up what the hole for her neck was daring to expose. Her hair was the color of the fur on a dog's underside, and her skin was similarly stained with cigarette smoke. She flung open the door and stomped inside, but didn't apporach the counter.
She screamed: "I was here two hours ago and I got nothing! It went up to $7.89 and I got nothing! I've got a red convertible and my son is dehydrating in the back!" Then she stormed back outside.
Just outside the door, there was a woman who was sitting on a bench, smoking. Her presence in this story is mostly irrelevant, except that I find it odd that people would show up at a convenience store, pull up a squat next to the "No smoking, please" butt bin, proceed to chain smoke a pack, then hoof it back to wherever they came from.
I followed the woman with my eyes back across the store's lot to the pumps, where she stood near a red car. She looked up at the pump, clearly labeled "3" on her side, and then turned toward the counter with digust, raising her hand to indicate vehemently the pump from which she wished her gas to be dispensed: Pump Two.
The guy at the counter was finally ready to help me. He was watching the woman out the window. "She told me pump two when she was in here last time," he said. He activated pump three.
I paid for my pizza and left. That's enough of redneck central for me this week.
