It started with a single insect, no bigger than a tick-tack.

With wings, tucks beneath an olive green shell, it marched haplessly across the counter towards

me.

More accurately, towards the condensation ring around the half-melted icy, the one I'd

forgotten on the counter.

My mind registered the bug's presence of full three seconds before the proper reaction

said, and I looked down from the book I'd been reading all afternoon, noticed a veeridescent

ant-like creature, and looked back at my book.

Then quite unexpectedly a sense of panic, roundhouse kicked me in the face.

I screamed something the book down on top of the insect, and shouted to my co-worker,

Jerry, Code Green, get the kit!

Jerry, who had spent the last two hours sitting on a milk crate behind the counter, watched

clips from RuPaul's drag race on his phone.

Suddenly sprang into action.

I'm on it, yelled, as he dove over the counter, taking the entire powerball display with him

and crashing onto the other side.

Get the ground, bounce back up, and sprinted into the dry storage room where I had painstakingly

arranged a number of emergency kits for just such an occasion as this.

For those of you new to this blog, I should probably take a second and explain a few things.

The gas station where Jerry and I work has been around for a long time.

At least as long as the town it was built next to.

It has a rich and complicated history that I won't bore you with, but suffice to say

...