The Ramtown Wawa Is a Post-Grad Nightmare

Photo by Think Howell Of. 

Election season is over, with half of the country passively celebrating and the other half grappling with what went wrong. Despite the darkness that comes with political turmoil, there is a perceived glow over the November horizon that people either happily embrace or involuntarily coil away from: Thanksgiving. 

The holiday has good intentions. It is a day of thanks and a day meant for rest and relaxation with family. And Thanksgiving should be a peaceful day to forget about the rest of the world. Well, that depends on how quick your uncle is ready to spit out political jargon while passing the gravy. 

Instead of focusing on those awkward familial interactions, though, Think Howell Of will spend this post-election time focusing on something much more viscerally thorny that comes with coming home for the holidays: seeing your peers. 

Witnessing someone you went to high school with in the wild of Howell can come with a choice. For example, every year, on the Wednesday night before Thanksgiving day, almost every one you once walked the halls of Howell High with decide on one bar to amalgamate in. It is a ritual I both critique with distaste and join in on. For research purposes. 

There is another side of the coin of this problem that is also completely out of one’s hands. And most of the time, it has to do with just being hungry. High school and college graduates alike can relate to the sacrificial risk one might take when they are craving the ultimate comfort food, a Wawa sub. Not only is Wawa, the convenience store chain that originates out of Philadelphia, quintessential in the coming of age experience along the east coast of the U.S., but it is a pivotal and routine indulgence that paints the experience of growing up in Howell. 

But now that degrees have been obtained and entry level positions have been started, the once exciting and juvenile food outing is now a dreadful and catastrophizing journey. If you are a Ramtown Wawa native, then this information may make you feel the same way your morning alarm clock will; aware and simultaneously in denial. We are all victims of it. 

I, for one, don’t enter said facility without at least looking presentable. Gone are the days of pajama pants for midnight runs. I have turned them in exchange for a suitable sweatshirt, a light dab of makeup, and maybe a nice-ish pair of jeans. 

And maybe that’s juvenile. However, when you open the doors, make your way to the ordering kiosk, look to the left and find a vaguely remembered face from your sophomore year history class, a sense of relief comes washing over. And that’s just it, too. The person you are always forced to face is never a dear friend or someone you remember having an in class bond with. No...this person, lingering in the chip aisle, always has to be somewhere on the B team of your high school memory, making for a calamitous moral decision to be made, all while pressing the bacon button that will add an extra dollar to your tab. You consider looking, waving your hand, giving an odd smile. You then have to remind yourself: Do they even know who I am?

Oh, and those three to five minutes of waiting for your sandwich are equivalent to waiting in a faith-deciding line in purgatory, just waiting to get your number called to leave the doors to a glowing white outside. 

But before even then, you must make your way to where you pay. 

At check out, you ignore the cashier that you have known since you were seven. Thanks, have a good day. 

Now, the point to this pessimism is not to suddenly find the moralistic desire to all become one happy bunch again. I actually commend the ignorance that most each person puts on like armor when they walk past a cloudy previous peer in the Howell Target during Black Friday. This ignorance, though awkward, contributes to a peace that many seek during the holiday season, and that I for one welcome with open and forgiving arms. So what that you all studied together, walked the halls together, and suffered four extensive and drama filled years together. Those years are over. And they are not coming back (thank Christ). So to subject yourself to glib propriety only does so much good as studying ten minutes before an exam: brief familiarity, with little to no use when it comes down to the wire. 

Maybe these reunions are only welcomed by liquid encouragement. This seems to be the jist when you walk into the bar on Wednesday night and are looked back on by every person you once sat next to at a football game. On nights like those, decorum (or better yet, drunk decorum) is welcomed, and suddenly that girl that called you a lesbian, despite not being one, your freshman year of high school may actually be someone you consider buying a drink for. The difference, aside from the alcohol, lies in the subject of choice, which is sorely out of the picture when it comes to the confusing and horrific shock of walking in to grab yourself some coffee only to see the girl who told you your sophomore year that you weren’t pretty from a male point of view. That choice is not something we should feel bad about. 

So… if you find yourself in a Wawa this holiday weekend, in an attempt to relive your Thanksgiving leftovers via Gobbler sandwich, and you see a brunette with a prominent nose that looks roughly like Olivia Mezzarina, well, then, just order your sandwich in silence. 

How am I?

I’m good. I’m sure you are too.