27th Nov 2006
Southern Arizona
After much travel, I feel it’s clear to say that the worst smell in the West is in a Shell-Subway station in southern Arizona.
I wish to apologize for all the employees because it’s clear to me that they can’t smell it or they couldn’t work there. It is gag-able.
We were desperate enough to consider sandwiches at Shell-Subway, which breaks a policy I have never to a. use Shell gasoline and b. never to eat food near a gas station much less from a gas station. But there seemed to be nothing to eat for hundreds of miles. And so we ventured in.
But then there was the smell. Wine tasting has snottily honed our senses (and made us big drunks, but that’s another story). Jim felt the aroma was of roasted provolone cheese and burnt tires. I thought it definitely had undertones of provolone, but there was a yeasty finish with end notes of vomit. And with that, I gag again.
It reminded me of the second worst meal in the world, in eastern Colorado, in a restaurant populated mainly by flies. Jim claims that he looked at me once during the meal and counted 12 flies on me before shooing them away. The employees there also said this was normal. Let me quote. “Have you ever been to Eastern Colorado before? No? That’s how it is here.”
I find that hard to believe.
