waste not...

The one time I was arrested was because my dad refused to ever stop the car on long road trips.
It was 2000, and driving alone from Chicago, I hoped to make Cheyenne by dinnertime. I hate stopping for dinner on the road, and instead prefer to order out from my hotel room, so it was important to get to Cheyenne before six.
I was driving fast along I-90 through South Dakota and playing the "name that land-form" from my childhood road-trip days. "What's that?" my dad would say, "An alluvial fan!” or " A glacial moraine!" my brother and I would yell together, hoping to beat the other one to the answer first.
That day I was the first in the car to blurt out "The breaks of the Missouri!" when I spied an exit with a sign for a gas station/convenience store. I had drank up my last coke back in Minnesota and at the sight was suddenly thirsty for some more, as one can only get thirsty for a soda during a long drive without air conditioning in South Dakota in July.
I hated stopping for something as minor as a coke because it would blow my whole schedule. My dad always prided himself on his trip planning and his speed "Just like Napoleon marching towards Moscow, but with better logistics." I checked the clock, and since I had been moving fast, had just enough time to stop and buy something and move on again.
The door closed off the dry wind and petroleum smell behind me and the sweat on my back chilled when I entered the store to head for the fogged-up glass doors of the soda section. I considered buying a six-pack for the motel that night, but, since I didn't have a cooler with me, figured I'd just get one in Cheyenne. I grabbed a $1.00, 20oz bottle of coke from the cooler and went to pay with my only available source of money at the time: a credit card. She pointed to a sign that said "No credit card purchases under $10.00."
"Ten bucks?" I said.
"Yeah. Sorry." she said, then tried to help me with: "Why don't you buy some gas?"
I thought about it, but explained, "I'm on 3/4 of a tank, that's just a waste of time." I ignored her queer look and walked back and bought 6 more bottles of coke, a bag of tortilla chips, and a jar of salsa. $11.56. Perfect.
One coke down and half an hour later I had to pee, so I busted out my half-filled Mason jar and, using skills perfected many years before, filled that bottle up. I passed exits, but I couldn't stop so soon. Even if the last time we had stopped was four hours ago, if my brother or I had to go, it was "We can't stop so soon! Why didn't you do it when you had the chance?" and the Mason jar would be passed back. We only ever had one, and both my brother and I had to use it, even if the other had been the last to go. Chucking the contents out the window "just wouldn't do", so it was always emptied into a urinal at a gas station at our next fill-up. My dad relented once for me when the jar was full, and he pulled over by the side of the highway. I stood and peed into the ditch, but then the wind changed and I had to face the freeway to pee. Truckers honked, my brother laughed, and my dad said, "Next time you'll go when you have the chance."
Even though I prefer the raw beauty of the trip through the Bad Lands, and then cutting south just west of the Black Hills to get to Cheyenne, I had time to keep, so I opted turning south at Murdo and going through the Reservation and the Sand Hills to get to 80. It was the old route: the route dad always took because we could avoid both the traffic of Omaha on 29, and the winding roads of the Black Hills. Once when I was little and going through Mission we were caught in a cloud burst that turned the dirt roads of that Reservation town to mud. My dad spun out on the turn south and all the Indians on the street stared and laughed. I put my hand to my mouth and let out my woo-woo-woo noise all white kids make when playing cowboys and Indians. My mom said:” Be careful Johnny. They like to scalp little blonde heads" She loved to tell that story, and how she saw my "head get lower and lower in the seat." That was back in the 70's, and by this time the highway was paved through town. Among Country Music, Preachers, and Heavy Metal, I somehow found Car Talk on the radio out there. I love Click and Clack, so I rolled up the driver's side window to listen.
Anyway, I made it through Mission scalp in check, and headed south for the long road through the Sand Hills to 80. I've always liked that road because it reminds me of the basin and range in miniature of 50 through Nevada.
I grabbed my second coke and realized it had started to get warm. I drank it, but since I carried no cooler, realized I'd have to polish off the rest of the coke if they were to be at all drinkable. I had my chips and salsa, and together with the dry day and the long drive, I was thirsty.
I sucked down the coke, ate my chips, listened to the Tappets and flew down the road. I was making great time on a sunny day and going to a town I knew. When the salsa ran out I pitched the jar into the passenger seat where it bounced off and flew into my mason jar.. Both shattered. Instantly the smell of old urine and spicy jalapeño salsa filled the car.
The four cokes spewed out my mouth. I turned my head to let the torrent of carbonated vomit escape out the window, but it hit the closed window. The puke sprayed back into my face, increasing my convulsions so that I began to expel even the convenience store wiener I'd eaten for breakfast.
I tried to open my window and grab the chip bag, looking for anywhere to puke besides my dashboard and windshield.
Later, during the arraignment, the cop I'd passed said he'd noticed my car weaving and that is why he decided to pull me over. When he grabbed me from my car, my stomach empty but still heaving, I stumbled into him and dripped my vomit onto his pants and smeared it onto his shirt. Lacking any coherent explanation for any of this, I couldn't stop him from throwing me to the ground, hand cuffing me, and putting me into the back of his cruiser.
When we got back into Mission and I was hauled into the county jail, the Indians were there again, staring and laughing.
As they booked me, I could not help but think of the story of François Mitterrand and Henry Kissinger. Mitterrand flew on the Concorde from Paris to New York and when greeted by Kissinger, said to him, "I just saved three hours on that plane!"
Kissinger retorted: " And what did you do with those three hours?"

FICTION