“It’s a Privilege To Pee”

For you non-Musical Theatre fans, there is a musical called Urinetown. It’s a silly story about a town that charges people to use the restroom. I saw it once. It’s hilarious. I mean, what a crazy idea that using the bathroom is a privilege you have to pay for. It’s a satirical comedy about the legal system, municipal politics, and a bunch of other things. I didn’t realize it was actually based on a small Texas town.

WELCOME TO SONORA, TEXAS.

Now, I love Texas as much as, if not more than, anyone else who was born and raised there or got there as fast as they could. But, there are those small towns, the ones that seem to be fake, a crazy place that people base movies like Wrong Turn or say, I dunno, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on. It doesn’t seem real. Seems like some Hollywood playwright had a bad dream, woke up in a sweat, and knew he had a scary movie gold mine in his head. This guy must have written Sonora, Texas into existence.

At first glance, it looks normal enough. That’s how they get you to pull over. They put gas station signs on the freeway, and hey, you need gas. So, you pull off onto a small road. The gas stations closest to the freeway are closed. Even their automated machines require someone to be inside… weird, but you see the lights of another gas station just up the road. That’s how they get you: false hope.

At about 1 am, Christopher pulled over to try to get some diesel gas for the truck. I mean, we were only getting about 3 mpg at that point. Two gas stations were closed. We pulled into another that also appeared closed to use the automated machines. From the road behind us, a cop car pulled into the gas station lot and circled us. They did not stop or ask us if we needed help. (Serve and protect, my foot.) When we realized that the machines required a teller’s approval, Christopher ran next door to the Best Western to see if I could use the restroom (I mean, we had stopped, so why not?). They would not allow either of us to use the restroom. The cop car had silently left the lot without an offer of assistance. Christopher continued a little further into the small, creepy town to find a gas station. We saw one with a diesel sign and pulled in to the lot. We ran to the store attached to pay and so I could use the bathroom. There was a lady inside cleaning who completely ignored us. We noticed their hours and saw that they had just closed.

There was one other gas station that still had their lights on down the street. We drove less than a mile to the hot spot, apparently. The gas station’s lot was full of cars fueling up and parked in front of the store. We noticed that there was no diesel pump. Great, the only gas station open in this town didn’t have the gas that Bertha (a truck we DID NOT WANT, I reiterate) needed! Well, I still had to pee, and they obviously had a bathroom. There was one 18-wheeler parked on the edge of the lot.
We were about its size, so there was nowhere to park. We pulled past the entrance in front of another closed business (it was 1 o’clock in the morning, after all). There was no traffic except at the gas station. Some police officers were sitting in the gas station store chomping on some snacks. I smiled and ran past them to the bathroom. 3 young girls were already occupying the stalls, so I waited. Soon, I finished, washed up, and ran back outside.

When I walked out, I noticed the same police vehicle that had circled us at the first gas station parked behind Bertha with its lights on. At first, I thought, “Oh, good, they are going to help us find an open diesel gas station.” Boy was I giving Southern hospitality too much credit. Christopher stood behind Bertha digging in his wallet. I figured out this wasn’t a good thing happening.

There isn’t much to say about the “officer.” Officer Poop-Face was giving us a ticket, a ticket for “stopping, sitting, or parking on a roadway.” I mentioned there were no signs and we didn’t know we couldn’t park there since we weren’t blocking anything. He snapped that there didn’t need to be signs, you just can’t park on a road. He was being a—um, well—jerk we’ll say. So, I asked, “Well, since you’re here, maybe you can tell us where a gas station that has diesel is located!” Christopher asked, “You saw us pull into the other gas station, right?” He nodded. I asked, “Did you follow us here?” He barked, “No, I did not.” Christopher tried to reason with him; he was calm. I was not. I felt like it was all my fault because I had to pee and we couldn’t fit the truck into the parking lot. I asked if he would at least write me the ticket instead of Christopher. No luck.

I made my way to the curb and SAT on the roadway. I was stunned. I simply couldn’t believe that this was happening. After everything that had already happened to us. Deputy Dip-poop was just a small man with small parts trying to make himself feel powerful and a little bigger, but for some reason, it didn’t make me feel better. Christopher told me later that he told Christopher to make me get in the truck, and Christopher said, “That is my wife. She’s upset. You can show a little respect.” HA! I love it. Small town, small man-parts cop said, “Now you’re getting on my nerves.” Anyway, he gave us the ticket though it has WARNING checked. The court says he meant to check CITATION (we’ve talked to them already), but he didn’t. I want to fight it, I really do. We’ll at least want to file a complaint against Deputy Dung-Pants, but is it worth it? The fee, I think, is like $67. It’s not a ton, but we don’t have money to spare. We explained that we were moving across the country so Christopher could start school, but guess that guy didn’t care. School? What’s that?

Onward. We finally got out of that Hell-Hole they call a town and moved forward. We found a gas station a little further along I-10, automated, of course, and filled up. I was exhausted from everything that had happened plus now eyes puffy from crying. I just wanted to make it to the hotel. We did. Eventually. We strolled into the lobby at about 5:30 in the morning. Check out time was at 11 am, just a few hours later. We knew we wouldn’t get a lot of sleep. I mean, I was taking a shower because, “Ewe.” The lady behind the front desk was a little helpful. We actually woke her up when we got there. She was lying on the couch in the lobby and jumped up when we walked in the door. She gave us a late check out. Late meaning noon, but hey, I’ll take it. And I did. We probably feel asleep around 6 or 6:30.

I woke up before my alarm in the morning. I suppose I didn’t sleep well because I was terrified of oversleeping. I knew we had to get on the road and still had a faulty truck with a check engine light on to deal with that morning. We left the hotel, stopped and got more gas, and called the Penpoop SOS line again. This time, I had Christopher do it. I felt like I wasn’t taken very seriously over the phone. He spoke with them and let them know what we decided. Instead of waiting for one of their “technicians” to come out to us again, we would drive the truck to the El Paso shop. We were told they would look at it there, establish if it was fixable, and we would go on from there. If it was not, we would switch trucks. Someone would help us move our belongings, of course.

Okay, so let’s do this.

Next time, on California Dreamin’: Christopher and Ashley make it to El Paso and discover the fate of Big Bertha, with one last trip to Whataburger, they leave Texas, New Mexico enters and leaves their lives, and delay or no delay, they make it to Arizona to stay with Ashley’s good friend.

Join us again soon! …Same bat time (round-about), same bat blog…

*”It’s a Privilege to Pee” from URINETOWN written by: Hollmann and Kotis

Note: Blogspot is still not picking up my Italics, and I really don't want to go through the whole post to find where I meant to italicize, so hopefully you can pick up on my inflection. Thanks! :o)