Scene from a gas station

Perspective
London, ON
January 2026
This photo originally shared on Instagram

The scene: a gas station not far from home.

I’ve come here to refill the tank with dinosaur remnants because we apparently value mobility, and the dinosaur remnants we bought a couple of weeks earlier have been depleted. Who knew that was even a thing?

I fill the tank and wait for the receipt to come out. As is so often the case, the thermal printer whirs its little heart out, but produces nothing. A “please see attendant inside” message pops up, so off I trundle across the crumbling parking lot to fetch it.

I smile at the attendant as I ask for the receipt for pump 11, trying my hardest to make it a friendly moment for us both. She briefly looks up from her smartphone before she silently taps a few keys and hands me the receipt before returning to playing whatever it is she was playing. She says nothing. I’m guessing the printers at the pump aren’t getting paper refills anytime soon.

I thank her anyway. On the way out I decide to engage in an act of spontaneous abstract photography. Because gas stations aren’t quite the community hubs they once were, and I want to remember what they look and feel like before they disappear forever.

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