Exit 52B

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas and Happy New Years. I hope your Holiday break found you and yours well. It found me and mine well. I drove home to my parents' house in The Woodlands on Tuesday. It's a 3 hour drive and there's not much to see that hasn't been seen countless drives in the past. So, like everyone else in America, I like to read the billboards and road signs to keep me entertained on drives such as this one.
And hot dammit, entertained I was!
I saw a billboard that boasted 'AWESOME RESTROOMS' at Al's Truck Stop at Exit 52B. AWESOME RESTROOMS? Who doesn't want to do their business in AWESOME RESTROOMS?
I decided that this was the place I needed to go, and even though I really didn't need to go, I knew I could make myself go, just to see what an AWESOME RESTROOM was.
I'd been waiting a long time to see some, and I would not have to wait much longer, for 52B was just after 52A, and I passed by that 40 yards ago.
I exited at the proper exit. I pulled up to the truck stop. I got out of my truck and went in...
Wellp, let me say this much my friends, 52B does not have AWESOME RESTROOMS.
If these were AWESOME, then I've been mis-using that adjective for the past 28 years.
I half expected a bidet to shoot Vitamin Water betwixt my legs. Maybe a little jar of blue juice by the sink that houses a tiny comb with ancient script etched in the side. Four marble pillars surrounding a jacuzzi.
Too much? Well howsabout a couple walls that were clean of gay men's phone numbers? Or a few ceiling lights that worked. Perhaps a scale to weigh in on, and not a condom machine with glow in the dark rubs in it? This place was embarrassing.
Nothing at all AWESOME.
Not one sign of AWESOME anywhere.
DECENT at most. ADEQUATE at best. SO-SO in a pinch.
Beware. False Advertising adorns the billboard for Exit 52B, on I-45 South to Houston. I mean, if you're looking for a RESTROOM, by all means 52B is one of those. Ya can piss wherever ya want, for the most part.
Al's Truck Stop, why don't ya just advertise what the restroom does? Just put 'WE GOT SHITTERS' on the sign. That's all. No need to add cool adjectives to the front and get people's hopes up.
Cause my hopes were up. I really wanted to enjoy my stay in that AWESOME RESTROOM.
If that was AWESOME, I don't know what AWESOME is anymore. And that makes me feel old.