Berrydale

[dropcap]O[/dropcap]ff Highway Eighty-Seven, just before the Florida border, is a service station in Berrydale. If you’ve never been to Berrydale, you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s a town of about four hundred residents. Most keep their fridges on the back porch, and burn their trash in an oil drum.

Good folks.

The service station is among the last of its kind. It doubles as an eatery, and it’s a hot-spot for Berrydalians. The whole town goes there, and I can’t blame them. They have a biscuit sandwich that tastes just like deep-fried cherubs singing Handel.

Whenever I pass by, I stop in for a sandwich. And the girl behind the counter never forgets my face. To her, I’m sweetie. She’s at least a decade younger than me. When she sees me walk through the door, she rustles up a sandwich and some fried corn nuggets.

Corn nuggets are the best things before sliced bread.

A few days ago, I stopped by. There she was, loading my little Styrofoam box with a handful of something.

I could’ve asked her to marry me.

“I gave you something different today,” she said. “It’s free.”

“Free? Why?”

“Because legally, I can’t charge you for this kind of biscuit sandwich.”

I opened up the foam box and looked inside.

She smiled her three teeth at me. “I just caught that bullfrog last night. Joker had legs like Michael Jordan.”

I smiled back at her. “You forgot my corn nuggets.”

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