So, you know…I really like a potato log.

Is there anything, even remotely, more wonderful than a gas-station-deep-fried potato log?

I don’t think so. No.

I. Don’t. Think. So.

I am, personally, mad-dog in love with the potato log. I look upon its tasty goodness as a drowning man would a life raft.  (I wrote that and then had this visual of being a drowning man and seeing a life raft and then, in that life raft I saw, like,  hundreds of potato logs and my heart started beating really fast and I almost had to take half a Xanax).

So, you know…I really like a potato log. It has taken a place of supreme necessity in my life, the potato log.

It has become—a reward.

For what, you ask? Why, for driving to work each morning.

Still confused?

Here, let me explain:  See, I hit this same halfway point (of melodramatic ennui) every morning.  This halfway point is roughly next to that strange Mexican restaurant that might also be a hotel at the second four-way stop-that’s-really-a-six-way-stop between Brooksville and Macon.

For some reason, each morning when I pull up to this engineering near-failure of the MDOT, I’m tempted to call it quits, throw in the towel, or turn the car around and go back (something I never do). And each morning, I have to force myself to take a large-down-to-my-heels breath and say, “Kris, you can’t get a potato log if you don’t get to Scooba. That’s where the potato logs are, Kris. Scooba. So, get it together and drive on.”

It’s a successful piece of motivation if for this one reason only: I’ve tried the potato logs at every other available gas station between here and Scooba (even the pitiful, dilapidated one that, at first glance, would appear to be a prime locale for those in search of the White Rabbit, but is indeed a usable gas station. The sign practically yells it at you, “Yes! We are open! Yes!” They did not, however, have potato logs).

And I did not stay there after realizing that fact.

Truth is, they just seem to fry a potato log better in whatever the oil is at Gas Station #3, also known as Scooba Junction, with its little train logo on the building.

And no…I don’t want to know what’s in the oil.

I just know that if I want a potato log the way God intended, I have no choice but to go all the way to Scooba. (Well, that and also I work in Scooba).

Sigh.

Today was one of those days that nearly won out over my want of a paycheck. Today hurt. I have never wanted to get in my car less than I did this morning, and that’s counting days I’ve driven through tornado watches, fog advisories, and goats.

I wasn’t sick, I wasn’t unhappy, I was simply done. That’s what I realized this morning.

I was simply done.

I couldn’t fathom another hour and some such minutes behind the wheel of my car having to share the road…or share, period. I’m through with it, mentally. Why my body continues to go and drive to my office every day is beyond me.

I’m worn out with being a “roadie.” I’m tired of all the truck drivers; I’m tired of Miss Jesus Is My Co-Pilot who absolutely must drink her coffee while applying eye shadow at 83 MPH, and smoke. I’m tired of nose pickers, cell phone talkers, motor-mouth singers, speed demons, omni-blinkers, and the elderly.

I’m tired of all of them. All of these people who, I can only assume, wait every morning just for me, before pulling out from their respective driveways and back roads for the sole purpose of getting in my way.

As I slung my own car, Tigi, onto Highway 45, bright and early this morning, I slowed a teensy bit as I came up to the first (and last) exit that would allow me to easily wind my way back home, but I didn’t because a) I’m not independently wealthy so I have to work, and b) I was starving and I knew of only one thing that could satisfy it: potato logs.

So, I suckered myself into the drive.

Maybe I was hungrier than I thought, maybe I was eating out of anger and frustration, or maybe I’m really just a big, fat lovable porcine extra in Charlotte’s Web, but I bought six potato logs, each roughly the size of a firm banana.

I added to that order a Coke Zero, or if you prefer, Joke Zero, and three small plastic tubs of ranch dressing…and one of honey mustard.

I am not one ounce ashamed, nor do I have even a gram of guilt about it, either.

Instead, I savored each hot morsel of that salty tuber flesh, licked the tips of my mystery- greasy fingers, and for several long seconds, when I’d eaten all of them, sat back in my chair and wore the crumbs like a well-deserved Purple Heart.

Because teaching is hell, and war is hell, and if this were a valid and logical syllogism, then you could say that teaching is war.

And you have to fight a war in order to get a Purple Heart. Even if you’re wounding yourself by gorging on a sack full of what’s floating in a gas station’s back room Fry Daddy.

It’s a fitting metaphor, trust me. Around here, the battleground never flattens out; new trenches are dug every day, and the troops stay primed for ambush.

And me? I stand out like the sore thumb of a sitting duck trying desperately to teach them about Sophocles and pageant wagons.

Maybe by the end of the week we’ll at least be able to spell Sophocle.

I mean, Sophocles.

See what I’m saying?

You’d eat your way to a Purple Heart, too, I imagine.

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