Arkansas Ankle Bracelets

The fields of Arkansas, hereby deemed Smokansas, are still burning. Outdoors has turned to indoors as the entire sky, corner to corner, looks like the inside of a breakroom in a tobacco factory. I keep the windows up but by the end of my 45 minute drive, my throat feels like I’ve been sitting on the wrong side of a campfire for about that long – and it’s not fabulous to lose your voice when you still have to lecture for a couple hours. By that time, the only cure for the scratch attack in my throat is whiskey or fritos - so I’ve been stopping off at the Exxon an exit or so before the compound to get something, anything for relief.

I prefer the Exxon because the Shell is too close to the exit and has a depressing layout and the guys that work there are always on their laptops or cell phones (completely destroys my image of gas station workers). The ladies that work at the Exxon have style (glitter nails and funky angel and jesus pins on their uniforms) and always something to say to me when I buy “Mad Housewife” merlot like, “I saw this in a magazine… makes a great gift,” and there was that time I heard one call the other “Big Booty Judy.”

Perhaps the greatest feature of the Exxon is that it has a very clean bathroom featuring one of those Xxxxcelerator high-powered hand dryers. You know the kind that nearly blow off the epidermal layer of your skin – very extreme hygiene.

So, anyway, yesterday I nearly toppled over a small skinny, skinny man with a long, long pony-tail and teeny, wiry mustache. He was just standing around like a creepy little troll with a bunch of larger ogre dudes waiting for the guys restroom. I started to say “Exscuuuu-uuse you…” when I noticed that his ankles were hand – or I guess in this case it would be - ankle-cuffed together. I looked out the window and saw the white US Extradition van, and the armed officer (sporting a gold hoop earring which made me think; private company) by the door, and I thought, I really hope there aren’t chickconvicts in the ladies room, I’m in no mood for a lipstick riot, but I decided to take a chance knowing Big Booty Judy would have my back.

The second I opened the door a woman screamed. (Yes, this is a recurring but very true theme – screaming in restrooms) I thought she was reacting to the mob of barely supervised prisoners just a few feet away, but apparently she was just startled because she’d put her hands under the Xxcelerator Dryer and was completely unprepared for not only the unmistakable powerful burst of air, but for an air dryer all together. She looked at me and said, “God dang! I expected paper towels to come out of here.”

I laughed. Travel amateur. So I told her, “I’m sure one of the guys out there will let you dry your hands on their pants.”

Welcome to Smokansas.