Buc-ee's and The Infinite American Spirit

...how a gas station megachain with palatial bathrooms, beef jerky walls, and neverending merchandise became a cultish American spectacle...Roadtripping through the South is an experience that I associate with empty Arizona cans, endless stretches of interstate, Spotify, the occasional Hostess Zinger, and my compulsive noticing and reading-out-loud of every passing billboard. After a couple hundred such noticings of these advertising relics, the thematic frequent fliers become apparent: ALL-CAPS fireworks-warehouse placements, PSAs of upcoming generic gas-and-food oases, phone numbers promising to chastise you out of eternal damnation (often abortion-adjacent), anti-balding serum promotions with “before and after” pictures of hairless men growing...