When the urge to piss becomes too great to ignore any longer, you pull over at a rest stop.
A mother and daughter in the vending machine alcove stare out at you as you pass through the atrium of the rest area. You walk under the buzzing bug lamp and try not to look suspicious.
The bathroom is a hideously unpleasant experience and you chose not to reflect on it further.
On the way back to the car, you decide to check the state road map under the plexiglass frame in the atrium next to the drinking fountains but discover that an older woman wearing a Brewers baseball cap precariously on her frizzy white bob has positioned herself directly in front of the map and even though you slow as you pass and try to catch a notion of where you are in the Sunshine State, the elderly woman makes no effort to step aside.
You decide to give the old woman some privacy while she examines the map. Wait your turn, you think, heading over to the vending machine alcove. There is the long drive ahead of you, north to Inverness in the dark, rolling pine forests of Western Central Florida. A Coca-cola would do nicely.
You have a dollar in quarters jangling around in the pocket of your blue jeans. Oddly, the mother and daughter are still here. They are taking turns yelling Spanish into a cell phone. You spy a soda machine with giant, clearly marked buttons and a glowing picture of a soaking wet bottle of frothy Coke, nestled in a bed of ice.
You taste saliva.
The soda is $1.50.
You have $1.
Cursing at humanity. Profane exhortations.
There is a credit card reader on the machine, which you briefly consider using, before deciding it's probably better if there is no record or paper trail indicating your presence at this cursed rest stop on this night. Better to just tough it out until Inverness, where you plan on holing up in a back-roads motel, eating McDonalds, sipping a flask of rum, and watching whatever crap is on HBO.
Tomorrow, you will hike into the woods for three days alone, in search of meaning. Tonight, you are on the run. You've convinced yourself in the quiet cabin of your rental car that things can't get better than they have in the last few days. So, you are running from the inevitability that, all things being equal, your life is about to begin a downward descent.
As you leave the vending station, you notice that the old woman is now joined by an old man at the map, the two of the them together essentially blocking the map completely from your view.
You are about to make a verbal protest or, at the very least, some sort of annoyed clucking of your tongue when the wind becomes impossible to ignore.
Out in the balmy Florida night, rain is falling. The mother and daughter have retreated to a camper van in the parking lot. The rain is increasing in intensity by the second. The sound of traffic on I-75 is almost completely blocked out by the sound of the falling water.
The time for action has arrived. You sprint towards the rental, through the atrium, into the pouring cold rain, cursing yourself for parking so far away, your logic being that you could probably benefit from a little walk especially considering that you were planning on hiking thirty-eight miles in the coming weekend.
Now though, there is a stream of rainwater draining through the parking lot, separating you from the warm, dry interior of the rental.
Cars are slowing out of I-75. it's windy and cold and pouring rain. You approach the roiling river of water separating you and the rental, making a heroic leap into the air over the raging waters of the parking lot rapids, landing a foot too shy, your pant legs getting soaked.
You rush up to the car and fumble with the locks, looking up in time to see the daughter from the mother/daughter vending-area combo peering out at you sympathetically (or is it amusement?) through the foggy (and presumably dry and toasty) interior of the camper van as it backs out of the parking spot and lumbers towards the freeway.
