It’s four in the morning and once more the dawning has woke up the wanting in me…

 Jim is finishing restocking the shelves in the cooler as the radio plays. Just a short while ago he had finished putting the third shine of the night on the floor. "These kids come in here and spill slurries all over the place," he thought to himself as he finished filling the last row of Coke. The bell rang, telling him there was a customer, so Jim worked his way out of the cooler to the checkout stand in time to see the back of what he thought was the loveliest woman he had ever seen.

Earlier that night Billy Ray Miller had come in to fill his car up with gas; he was going to take the Missus and go down Biloxi way for a day or two to see the kids.

Billy Ray liked to travel in the middle of the night; it cut down on the use of the air conditioning when you drove early in the morning, and besides, there was hardly anyone else on the road besides the truckers, and a lot of them were sleeping in the rest areas.

Billy Ray’s wife, Margaret, was not too thrilled at having to get up in the middle of the night to make a few sandwiches for them. When you're traveling in the middle of the night you don’t want to have to stop for anything but gas, Billy Ray always told her, so she made up some sandwiches and coffee for the road.

When Billy Ray got home after he had filled the car up with gas down at the Handy Mart, Billy Ray came in to the house and got Margaret and the things she had fixed. He had put the luggage in the car before he had gone down to the Handy Mart to get the gas.

Things had gone well until they had to stop for gas and Margaret had gotten out of the car to use the restroom. She had been sleeping and when Billy Ray got back in the car he thought she was still there and started on down the road. It was about 50 miles or so before Billy Ray needed a cup of coffee and got a might concerned when he asked Margaret to get it for him and didn’t receive a response.  

Billy Ray pulled the car to the side of the road and felt the blanket that Margaret had had over her. No Margaret there, so he opened the back door thinking that some how she had managed to crawl over the front seat to the back seat without him knowing it.

After about 10 minutes of searching it finally dawned on Billy Ray that Margaret just was not in the car and about the same time, he realized that he must have left her back at the gas station where he had gotten gas. All Billy Ray could think of was getting back to get Margaret and how mad she was going to be. After all this was not like forgetting soap at the store on the way home.

How could he have doe this? he was asking himself as he saw one of those turnarounds that say “Emergency Vehicles Only” and whipped the car into it. After all, if this was not an emergency he didn’t know what was and he barely felt the rear of the car drag as he put the gas to it and headed back the way he had come. Billy Ray finally saw the exit that he had stopped for to get the gas and was about to it when he looked in his rear view mirror and saw the lights from the Highway Patrol car coming after him.

Billy Ray pulled over to the side of the road, got out and waited for the highway patrolman to come to him. As he approached Billy Ray, Billy Ray noticed the officer holding something in his hand. "This you license plate?" the officer asked Billy Ray. Billy Ray saw that it was his license palate and asked the trooper where he had gotten it. "It fell of your car about five miles back; must have caught it in the grass when you were making that Illegal U-turn back about 50 miles."

Billy Ray began to get nervous and when Billy Ray gets nervous only one thing begins to happen: Nature calls, and considering the fact he had not gone to the bathroom when they had stopped Billy Ray was more than ready to go.

The patrolman noticed Billy Ray start to dance around and asked him if anything was wrong, "No," Billy Ray replied through clinched teeth. Finally the patrolman decided to let Billy Ray go with a warning to have his rear license plate put back on.  It was all Billy Ray could do to contain himself until he returned to the service station and slammed the door on the rest room behind him.

Billy Ray slamming the door on the restroom woke up Margaret who had fallen asleep on the stool of the ladies' room and had not been aware that Billy Ray had even left. When they both came out of the restrooms they noticed each other and smiled weakly, each not knowing what the other had done.

Margaret got in the car and snuggled under her blanket while Billy Ray gat the service station attendant to put his license plate back on the car. When the license plate was back on the car Billy Ray paid and got into the car then leaned over and gave Margaret a kiss on the forehead. "Something wrong?" Margaret asked, "No," Billy Ray replied; "just thinking about how much I love you."

Jim watched the lady walk back up to the counter. If it had been a cartoon Jim’s heart would have been beating out of his chest and smoke would have been coming out of his ears. That is how she affected him. She paid for her gas and a Coke and as Jim handed her the change he felt a spark jump from her hand to his.

“Is there something you would like to say?” the lady smiled. “No,” Jim replied, remembering the dark thoughts episode. “Have a good day and come back again,” he finished to her back.

“Don’t look at me that way and sigh cause I might just be fool enough to try,” the radio played as Jim looked out the window at the lady driving away.