The Saga of the Late Night Hot Dog (Continued)

Tweet

You wouldn't think getting a hot dog around midnight would become the basis of an entire MyLot Saga, but well, apparently you would be wrong. To catch you up if you missed the original Hot Dog post, it was around 11 last night. I hadn't eaten much all day so I was pretty hungry, but not tired at all. However, I did have a pretty hefty hankering for a hot dog. The Love's Truck Stop in Town of Wilson can usually be counted on for a variety of hot dogs and smoked sausages, and it's open 24 hours... so that became my first stop. (After all, if it doesn't include things like "first stop", it's not really a "saga" is it). I head out in my pick up, jamming to Eric Johnson's Cliffs of Dover on the CD player. About the time the song ended, I pulled up into the parking lot and head for the door. Three employees give me an overly happy (for 11pm) "Good Morning, Welcome to Love's! (Apparently morning starts early there), then they dutifully went back to their stocking, cleaning and otherwise Truck Stop stuff-doings. I look over the choices of hot dogs, deciding on the Jalapeno Cheese variety. After adding mustard and some chili sauce, I drop the hot dog into the warmed bun. Then it was off to the pop fountain for that affable combination of sugar, caffeine, fizz and ice. Let's make it a good old Coca-Cola Classic this time. It wasn't surprising that there was no one at the check out counter, they have their duties around the store at nigh after all. However, none of them seemed to notice a customer at the counter. So I look around at the ones I could see (which means it stood to reason they could see me). A couple of "excuse me's I'm ready to check out" went unnoticed. It made me wonder how long that lonely hot dog and coke sitting customerless on the counter also went unnoticed. I bet if the dog and coke insisted on leaving with me, suspiciously unpaid for would have gotten their attention. Good thing I'm basically honest. So, it was off to the Kwik Trip across the way. Kwik Trip food is better than Love's Truck Stop food, but it gets a little sparse at night, and they're almost always out of hot dogs by this time... but hey, as long as I'm in the neighborhood.... As I suspected, the hot dog rollers were blissfully uncontaminated with hot dogs, so I check out the warmer where other fine C-store cuisine could be found. I lucked into finding a couple of Corn Dogs jumping up yelling, "Me! ME! Pick mE! So I did. A few pumps of the chili sauce with a bit of mustard found itself wallowing in a paper bowl, excitedly anticipating being a dip for something yummy. While the dip sat in anticipation, I put together another Coke, and went on to see if Kwik Drip employees were better at noticing customers at their check out counters than Love's employees. To my excitement, and well, my actual expectation, there she was, as if she knew I'd end up at the counter eventually. (And there was much rejoicing.... yeah) The Saga of the Late Night Hot Dog came to a successful conclusions.