Slight Detours | Wattys 2015

(7) JARED

Okay, maybe taking a pitstop at Sloan's Snack Shack wasn't such a great idea.

You couldn't exactly blame me. My feet were cramping, my arms were cramping, and the rest of my body was, you guessed it, cramping. Let's just say the numbing feeling did not help my already horrible decision making.

A man with the cramps does desperate things- words of wisdom from the one and only Jared ‘Macho-Man’ Steele. It was a brilliant alias if I say so myself, definitely better than ancient Confucius.

Now, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to know that Sloan’s Snack Shack was far from being a stellar attraction. Unless crappy shop with minimal- scratch that- no amenities was, in a parallel universe, the definition of five-star.

There were a series of things that were just off about the place. Not to mention, it was just plain… sketchy. No people, no cars, nothing, nada. Then again, it was the only working establishment we'd come across for miles. Barren and tumbleweed infested was sort the norm out on the open road.

By the look on her face, I could tell that Ally was just as apprehensive as I was. Her forehead was creased and a frown on her cherry pink lips completed her look of concern. I jerked my head to the side, silently asking her if she was okay. But then she simply shook her head and nudged open the door.

The first thing I noticed was the smell. It was something along the lines of rusting metal mixed with the waft of cigarette smoke. It wasn’t a very nice thing to inhale. But of course, the entire store had to reek of the particular stench.

“Do you smell that?” Ally said, pinching her nose. She surveyed the store meticulously, checking the mirrors and tiles for anything suspicious.

“Smell what?”

“I don’t know,” she admits, “It smells like spoilt eggplant or something.”

Spoilt eggplant? How the hell was I supposed to know what spoilt eggplant smelt like? Didn’t everything rotten smell the same?

“If you mean the smell of rust then, yes, I smell it too,” I sighed, veering toward the hotdog counter. My mouth was drooling by just staring. I haven’t had proper food in my mouth since last night’s party hors d’oeuvres. And as the fancy name suggested, the portions were unbelievably tiny. It was almost as if they were feeding ants.

“No, I definitely smell spoilt eggplant,” she insisted.

“What does spoilt eggplant even smell like?” I asked.

She opened her mouth like she was about to say something but decided against it. That was weird. I’d expected a sarcastic comeback, “Uh… oily herb?” Ally shrugs, defeated.

“Right,” I roll my eyes, “Because all spoilt things smell like oily herb. I wonder what happened to the saying that spoilt things were like vinegar.”

“Could you stop with the sarcasm for just one second?” she pleaded, crossing her arms like a five-year-old. She looked kind of cute, actually, with her bright yellow dress and turquoise shoes. And by cute, it meant five-year-old cute, not hot chick cute. Definitely not hot chick cute.

I paused for another second before saying, “I could even give you examples. For instance, spoilt milk tastes like vinegar and so does spoilt soup and spoilt caviar and spoilt-“

“Okay, I get it!” Ally groans, using the palms of her hands to cover her ears, “Sarcasm is your way of pissing people off.”

I gave her the slit eye look, “I don’t piss people off.”

Okay, that was a lie, I did piss people off. A lot. But Ally didn’t have to know that. I honestly wanted her to think of me as that nice guy. Someone that would always be there, someone that would make her laugh, someone that would gladly make fun of himself to please her.