What’s not to love? Four hearts: red, yellow, orange, red again. Bold black letters, yellow background. A smaller red heart in lieu of an apostrophe.
I see new businesses disemvoweling in an attempt to be modern and minimalistic. Innovation by way of making words with just consonants. Bhld, it’s BRGR. We are lost in this age of rebranding, abbreviations, and aesthetic lobotomies.
Love’s will not be swayed. For 61 years, no changes to the motto; “Clean Spaces, Friendly Faces.” A winning formula of better than ordinary toilets and urinals, properly carbonated soft drinks, new nicotine devices, superior gas station coffee, sundries, and, at most locations, a fast-food collaborator conjoined. More than 400 Love’s are equipped with dog gamned god parks. They have a bench for you and me, poop bags and turf for the dog to roam 50 to 100 feet in any direction.
Bliss, Idaho or Jasper, Missouri, it’s always a hearty “Welcome to Love’s” greeting. Employees stock aisles, fill ice troughs with beer and energy drinks, and maintain proper quantities of meat on the roller grill.
I dream of the Just OK or Alright American Road Trip. I’m an economy car, exurban guy and the road beckons. I’m star struck by these men and women of few words, greasy road weary cowboys hitting a million miles. They’re always on the go. I’m in it for the long haul, waiting for a public sighting at this transient third place. It could be in the middle of the night or at sunrise, when they walk in, headset still on, donning sandals, sweatpants, toiletry bags. Once in a blue moon, a married couple, team truck driving.
How well do they sleep?
What kind of setup in their rigs?
Do they ever stop to take in the sights?
I’ve logged enough hours on truck simulators to drive them. Let’s swap lives: take the keys, we can trade for a little while, let me try. Nobody would know. Nothing would happen.
You
Could
Just
Walk
Away.
Civilian, poseur, never tossed a piss jug. I log on to the Love’s app, swipe My Love’s Rewards “Professional Driver” card. It implies exclusivity. I drive, I spend, I earn the title. Truth be told, anyone can be part of the Love’s family, no matter your number of axles or length of the trip.
If I move from Base, to Gold, Platinum, up to Diamond, showers are free every day. But I need to travel more, fill the Focus up with 1500 gallons.
50 gallons gets you a free shower credit. There’s an access code to the door that will lead to your shower reservation. It has its own toilet and sink just off to the side. Immaculate, private, no graffiti. A portal. This is where I want to take my meetings, make major decisions, where truckers and power brokers cruise for fateful encounters.
“Traveling?” I’m asked by the man mopping outside.
I fill up here, sometimes nap, have a snack.
I’m headed home, next town over.
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Art by Lara Schaberg
