I have all these caretaker compulsions but little of the willpower. Before leaving the house for the weekend I feel a strong need to finish the dishes and the laundry and clean the cat litter and skim and freeze some chicken broth and tend the plants and make food for the road; I really can’t leave until it’s all squared away; but if I was really going to meet my schedule I probably should have gotten up at 5am. Instead I indulged a funny dream about a world where Helvetica was the only typeface and slept until 9.
[I didn’t really understand this recent NYTimes article on willpower. (Well, I didn’t read it very closely, and I ought to have been working anyway.) Are they suggesting that if I hadn’t eaten all that Nutella straight from the jar before bed, I would have been able to rouse myself earlier?]
So I headed up to Maine a little later than planned. Forty minutes out of the city I noticed that my checklist of roadtrip necessities, which included walnuts and duck eggs, had omitted gasoline. The dashboard light deployed. I couldn’t remember if there were any services on 95. Three exits went by with no designations and I finally took one: Topsfield. I lurched expensively around the ramp and sought any indications of nearby gas stations.
Good sign: Topsfield Road, to Topsfield. Sounds important!
Bad sign: “Road Narrows”
Good: Road gets a double yellow line
Good: Slow, school district
Good: Looks like commercial zone ahead
Really good: Looks like a town center ahead!
Bad: Looks like a scenic town center with village green and congregational church
Salvation: The Cumberland Farms logo. How could this fail me?
Oh: There’s really no gas pumps anywhere near it
Good: Nice kid in Cumberland Farms grins and says “OK, the nearest one is…..”
Hmm: “…one or two miles down Route 1”
Haha: …down a section of Route 1 shaped like the Superman ride
This weird, long-ass, creepy, repetitive Neutral Milk Hotel song was playing the whole time too, by the way. It’s called “Pree-Sisters Swallowing a Donkey’s Eye, or, Will Lisa Reach the Fuel Pumps”. I kept eyeing the waning — then waxing — red sliver at “E”. Anything detectable is good, right?
I did make it. The destination station was actually in Danvers which is easily distinguishable from Topsfield by its characteristic storage unit rentals, long term suites, and continuous adult entertainment. Naturally it was right by the first exit I failed to take off 95. And thus my dashboard light chorus was reduced to the usual four (Check Engine, Service, blinky up-arrow, and some icon I take to mean faulty flux capacitor) and I sailed on.
Then I got to Maine. Here I am.