99 Spillihp - Coon Rapids, MN - Part Two

Welcome to the semi-long awaited 99 Spillihp Part Two!

Where we left off in 99 Spillihp Part One, I had just publicly announced the name change of my place of employment from Phillips 66 (at Northdale and Hanson in Coon Rapids, MN) to 99 Spillihp, (at the exact same postal address) due to a management kerfuffle involving Mr. Nametag...

In Part One, I spent most of that story giving my personal history with the petroleum dispenser, as well as gave an extensive tour of the property. So if you haven't read that first, I implore you to do so. Part Two will make a whole lot more sense if you did...

Part Two is going to tell the stories of just how much fun working there was, and the general wackiness that I either instigated, or at least took part in...

Let me once again introduce my partner in crime, Dr. John.

(I think he is wearing my really old trenchcoat in this picture...)

Shown here in January 1995, standing in front of the candy counter. This photo has taken a beating over the years, with several tears, surface scuffing and some weird orange-ish stain that has eaten away the surface. If you can't red the sign John is holding, he's informing you that he's temporarily out of order. I still have that sign.

Shortly after I was hired, Dr. John and I drove up on my night off. I wanted to show him my new awesome job. Overnight Tracy was working, so we went in and harassed her for a few minutes. Before leaving we knocked on the window to get her attention, then pressed the “dog rot crotch” picture from the legendary issue of Playdames against itfor Tracy to view. We laughed our asses off and continued on our merry way.

Likely to Crapids Perkins (RIP). 

Dr. John would often send prank phone calls my way during my shift.

Some of them fooled me, and some didn’t. 

A few days later, Dr. John stopped in and wondered whether I was working that night. It was my night off, Overnight Tracy answered. He was going to buy a pack of gum before leaving, put his gum and money in the tray, causing Overnight Tracy to have a Juicy Fruit Meltdown. She screamed at him:

“GET THE GUM OUT OF THE FUCKING TRAY NOW!!!” 

When he finally got a car of his own, he would come up and hang out with me on my shift. On the first night he visited, Karen was there doing the books. It was a little after 1am, so we were dead. So he very coyly grabbed that customer survey form, and wrote:

Of course not! It's Karen!

Karen never minded John hanging out as he was always entertaining and was courteous enough to the customers, even though having visitors hanging out for several hours of my shift was definitely against company policy. Once he met her, and all was cool, Dr. John took the pen from the counter and started defacing Karen's note to customers, that was affixed to the counter:

Oh, back in the day when everyone paid with cash...

Some of my favorite memories of 99 Spillihp come from night John dropped by for zany antics and free fountain drinks. This varied from every night for weeks at a time, to infrequently with several months of not seeing him, as he wasn't living in Crapids. But as soon as he showed up, hilarity and wacky hijinks ensued.

Dr. John would often bring me stuff to use for Wasted Quarter in the middle of the night. He'd drop off little envelopes with clip art, that would be saved for me if I wasn't working when he dropped by. I'd then find some use for them...

For example, I taped these three clips on a piece of paper with a reference to something that was probably relevant in 1994. Under that is something the very bored second shift girl wrote on a receipt. The reverse side reads: "We are so dead!!" I much prefer "We are doing no business!!"

Very early one Easter morning, Dr. John wrote this quote down as a customer was droning on and on about how bad it was that I had to work on a holiday... You know what makes it worse? Having it pointed out by someone who is not at work!

On my 20th birfday, Karen left a note on the register for me when I came in at 10pm. 

Shortly after, Dr. John prank called the station and said he'd be up in a few hours. When he showed up, I was out front "cleaning" the store. He asked for my notebook and drew a few birfday cartoons for me, of some customers that came in that night.

And we wont even get into the night I decided to have Dr. John shave my head in the middle of the store using a REALLY dull electric razor... We had to keep stopping because customers kept interrupting...

******

Minnesota voted in a state lottery in 1989, but it didn't arrive at 99 Spillihp until winter 1993. Powerball didn't come in for a few more years after that.

We kept all lottery tickets in sealed bricks inside the safe. Before they could be sold, the brick had to be activated, and once all the tickets were sold, it had to be closed out. This was done with an antiquated scanner system to read the bar codes on each ticket. In addition to the ticket bricks, the scanner system would track our redemptions. All tickets would have the winning amount written on the back of them. In the morning, I would have to scan each of the previous day’s winning tickets, enter the amount paid out, which would then generate a report beamed via satellite to MN Lotto HQ.

Those redeemed tickets would be packaged together in a drawer in the office, where they lived for a while. (I never knew what happened to them after they went to the office...) We would also have to keep track of the current ticket numbers, writing them on a sheet each day to keep track of what was being sold. This was all part of my routine, so I could see which games were paying out, and which ones sucked. Paying close attention to the lotto trends came from doing the closing routine, and checking through the winning tickets out of boredom during my shift. Before long, I figured out how I could benefit from this...

At first, all we had was dollar scratch tickets, which I always found to be a huge waste of money. Winners over $3.00 were very rare considering how many tickets are sold. Most people just lost the buck with very little fun or excitement possible from their investment. Cashiers hated these tickets because they were cheap and we sold tons of them, but cashing them in for the simple dollar win, then swapping it out for a different dollar ticket was a pain in the ass. Someone coming in to make a $10 investment in dollar lotto, could play on that ten bucks for quite a while before they get down to zero. Spend $10, get $4 in winners. Four new tickets gets $3 in winners. Three dollars in tickets gets you a $5 win. The five new tickets come down to a $1 win, which you then trade in for a losing ticket. Not necessarily how it went every time, but that was usually how it went. You just accomplished nothing except wasting a whole bunch of my time. In all my years of gas stationhood, I doubt I’ve personally seen more than ten $1 tickets with a prize over $50.

The advent of $2 tickets brought the occasional higher winners out to those who wanted to spend double the initial investment. Granted, most of these winners were still $5 or less, but you would see $20 winners every once in a while from them. Something almost never seen from dollar tickets. Using my same fictional lotto buying scenario from above, the same person walks into 99 Spillihp with $10 to spend on lotto. He or she buys five $2 tickets and wins $8. Turns them in and wins $15. They leave happy, and I’m happy. Not only because they are gone quicker, but now I know I don’t have to pay attention to the $2 lotto today because the big winner is already gone for the next 20 or 30 tickets. Likely not to turn up for a few days, depending on sales.

When a gas station sells lotto tickets, you will get regulars who will buy a given quantity, then they will scratch them off on the store counter. The bad part is having to clean up the mess they leave behind. However, seeing this as a cashier is always a good thing if you are looking to net yourself some pocket cash at a reduced risk. If someone comes in and buys five $2 tickets in a row, and only wins $2 on one ticket, chances are there is a winner coming up in the next ticket or two. Simply wait until the store empties out and buy the next $2 ticket. Bam! $10 winner! This trick worked surprisingly well, though not so much with $1 tickets. Those were less predictable with their odds. Plus so many of the prizes were just break-even, it didn’t pay to follow them. Closely watching the scratch tickets was an excellent way to supplement my low income.

Additional insider knowledge came into play as I could see what winning tickets had been redeemed that day. Reading the ticket number on the winner in the bottom corner, I could see how recent it was given the number on the unsold ticket bin. If I knew I could get a winner, I usually bought it. This would turn the amount of cash in my wallet from $3 to $7 nearly every night by being alert to what was going on with the lotto. And those few extra bucks went a long ways back then...

In the Summer of 1995, big lotto news hit. Minnesota was introducing the first $5 ticket. Obviously the price was steeper, but the payouts were higher as well. The first -and best- game the Minnesota State Lottery came up with was High Stakes. $5 for 5 games. (Dice, Black Jack, Poker, Slots and In-Between.) Playing High Stakes left you feeling like you’d almost gotten your money’s worth, because there was more to do in comparison to previous games. At least at our store, High Stakes was a massive seller. A lot of that was due to the employees and regulars, but many customers realized the better odds by looking at the promotional flyer.

After a few months, stock ran out and a new $5 game (Casino Action) replaced it. That game sucked. It wasn’t as much fun and a poor rip off on the classic High Stakes ticket -with steeper listed odds. Nowhere near as popular, we didn’t sell nearly as many.

$5 High Stakes tickets lent themselves to the ticket counting trend quite often. Especially when you could get several customers playing at the same time. Among regulars and myself clearing out a combined $100 in $5 tickets on a good night, the big prize would be anywhere from $40-$100. However, you have to be careful and know when to quit if the tickets aren’t falling the way you predicted. Several employees got themselves in trouble in thinking they’d use the upcoming winning ticket to pay for the ones they didn’t have cash to pay for.

(Thanks Benno!)

Obviously if I’d seen a recent big winner come up earlier that day, I would tell all who came in not to bother that night. Those who felt like dropping $10-$20 anyways would usually walk away with one $5 winner and nothing greater.

Or you could just grab the station's Polaroid (if Kate didn't borrow it) and make abstract art!

******

How to Make Authentic Fake Vomit from Items Found in a Gas Station:

STEP 1:
Collect all ingredients for the World's Best Fake Vomit Recipe:

2 Packages Mayonnaise

1 Package Ketchup

1 Package Mustard

1 Package Taco Sauce

Generous Squirt Of Coffee

2 Packages Non Dairy Creamer

Dash of Mountain Dew

Handful Of Doritos, Crushed.

STEP 2:
Fill an Ice Cup just below the half way point with coffee.

Mix in the packages of Mayonnaise, Ketchup, Mustard, Taco Sauce and Non-Dairy Creamer. Mixture will be clumpy, but this is okay!

Next add a dash of chilled Mountain Dew from the fountain spigot, then crumble the Doritos over the cup. Stir again lightly, be careful not to inhale the contents of the cup, as the odor is strong and reeks of death.

STEP 3:
Find a suitable target for your homemade vomit bomb. Wal Marts and Taco Bells make for a good landing spot, as does the pay phone at Brooks. No matter where you choose to place you nice vomity mess, remember bonus points for creativity! Anyone can vomit in the street... Make a statement with your fake vomit!

For our photo demonstration purpose, we chose the car wash at the 99 Spillihp.

(I am so proud of this picture! Perfect timing to show the maximum flying fake vomit texture!)

STEP 4:
Stand back a few feet to achieve the appearance of forcefully tossing your cookies at the target.

You’ll also want to be far enough away to avoid any dreaded splashback. You do not want this foul smelling nast on your clothes. Or your hair... Or your eyes...

STEP 5:
Admire your hurl. When properly tossed, fake vomit can looks as authentic as the real thing. With it’s orangeish brown color, and a nice semi-digested texture, I defy anyone to tell the difference from a distance. This particular placement gives the appearance of a person leaving a little deposit on an alley wall, as they stumble home from the bar after a night of heavy drinking. I think I’ve seen -or done- this before myself...

STEP 6 (Optional):
If you are in a location where you need to clean up Authentic Late Night Fake Vomit, the best method is to have a good stream... Batches of our fake vomit has been known to stain sidewalk concrete for over two years!

******

Friday August 4, 1995
After expressing interest to me about part time work at 99 Spillihp, I helped get Benno the job. I came into work tonight to see a nametag on the desk reading “Ben - Customer Service Associate.” 

That Gross Fucking Yak Wook! 

In his two plus years at 99 Spillihp, Benno made some lasting contributions to both the company and in-jokes alike.

nads: In an effort to encourage us employees to clean, Karen brought in a paint stirring stick from Menards. Her intent was for us to use is with a towel wrapped around for cleaning under the microwave. Benno took the black cigarette marking marker and scribbled out the M, E and R so the stick read “nads.” The “nads” stick was still in the drawer when I left again in 2005.

For the outside ice storage chest, we kept the key on a keychain with a red plastic piece reading “ICE BOX” in raised white letters. Benno took his knife and removed the bottom part of the X during one of his shifts. When I came in that night, Benno showed me his handy work. Holding the keychain up, it now read: “Ice Boy.” This also had not changed by 2005 either.

Benno brought even more zany antics to the station...

Leaving us pictures in the counter drawers...

Posting helpful safety posters on the employee bulletin board...

Co-Authoring Shit Lists...

Though some of them fell a little flat...

One night when I came in at 10pm for my shift, Benno was sitting at the counter, working on a math problem. I asked his what he was doing, and he replied: "I'm trying to figure out how much my weight in Kool Burst would cost..." (Kool Burst was a plastic bottled Kool-Aid product we sold.)

Hmmm... That is an intriguing question. We sat down and worked it out:

Benno's current weight in ounces: 4,528

The going rate for "Kool Burst": 33 cents for 6.75 fluid ouces.

Benno would currently cost $181.72 before MN state taxes.

Sales tax on Benno = $11.77

Grand total for Benno: $192.89

Shrimp Dump

Dr. John visited the 99 Spillihp later that night, and I started explaining the Super Mega Benno Zord to him. John commandeered my notebook and drew up the Super Mega Benno Zord. We used the Kool Burst figures to add the price.

Which just illustrates how big the 99 Spillihp was to my circle of friends back in the years of 1995 & 1996. Working there was fun. It was a party. It was being paid to hang out with your friends every night.

Benno took this picture of three quarters of the local band Posh, hanging out under the 99 Spillihp canopy in the middle of the might. They used to hang out with us nightly. Their drummer and I became very close from hanging out every night, discussing life and our frustrations with our respective situations.

It wasn't always fun and games... Many of my nights were spent in heavy debates over life's philosophies of being a post Gen X kid trying to evolve in a constricting sleepy suburban town. It's that classic tale where everything minor and petty seems so huge compared to everything in the backdrop. But least for our group, the gas station provided some of that backdrop.

As fun as they were, those years ended -for me- at exactly the right time... 

******

99 Spillihp didn’t carry fresh donuts for the first year or so that I worked there. There used to be a local pastry company that would drop off pre-packaged stale danishes once a week, but no one ever bought those...

Down in the store room, we kept a glass case on the shelf that I always wanted to steal. Karen asked me to bring that up to the store one evening and I was told I had to clean it up that night as we would be getting a delivery of fresh donuts sometime after two in the morning. I was told to write off any that I wanted to eat.

Well that’s cool enough, free donuts! 

The guy who showed up that morning was a creepy old guy that talked like Bella Lugosi and drove a beat up blue Molester Van. More often than not, he would be wearing a skin tight t-shirt that read “House of Love.”

(Another Dr. John cartoon)

He became such an in-joke legend, I wrote an act of the never completed 47 act play based on working at 99 Spillihp. I started writing that in 1996 (and stopped writing that in 1996), based on events from one of his deliveries:

Act 13: “Hello Mr. Donut!”

Characters: Honkass, Dr. John, Mr. Donut
Backing music: Anything from God Ween Satan
Scene premise: Dr. John says "hi" to Mr. Donut
Approximate time: 2-3 minutes.

Curtain opens with Honkass and Dr. John leaning against the shelves, drinking sodas off the fountain. John has a Camel lit in his right hand. The windows are open and there is music loudly playing in the background.

Dr. John: “What is there to eat here that is good and that I can buy for 36 cents?” (John asks while counting change from his pocket)

Honkass: “Nothing here...”

Dr. John: “You got the hat?”

Honkass: “In the back window of my car.” (Points to the left offstage)

Dr. John: “Is it unlocked?” (Nervously fidgeting)

Honkass: “No...Here...” 

(Takes car keys out of jacket and hands them to Dr. John. He grabs them and takes off running stage left, disappearing behind the curtain. Honkass moves a few things around on the shelf. John quickly returns wearing a black hat with red feathers streaming out of it. Hat is several times too large for his head. He re-enters stage with a bouncing leap.)

(A drunken Dr. John re-enacts this at Crazy Carls house, New Years Eve 1999.)

Dr. John: “Hello Mr. Honkass!!” (Singing in an Ethel Merman vocal tone.)

Honkass: “John, you look like a gay poet.” (Dr. John grabs spray bottle and a cloth)

Dr. John: “Time to do the windows!!” (John sings while leaping through the air, he stops in front of prop door and sprays the bottle in a W pattern.)

Honkass: “W for Wreisner I’m guessing?” (John is Completely ignoring Honkass)

Dr. John: “Cleaning the windows!!” (Still singing in an Ethel Merman vocal tone)

Honkass: “Oh shit... The donuts are here...” (Looking out over the audience)

Dr. John: “Dude let me hide in the cooler!” (Turns to Honkass while speaking.)

Honkass: “John, you’re going to get me fired...”

Dr. John: “No, you wont get fired... Trust me!” 

(Dr. John runs offstage and kneels behind curtain. Honkass mutters profanity as he goes behind the counter again. About 7 seconds of silence while Honkass sorts through some papers on the counter. Mr. Donut enters stage left wearing a skin tight T-shirt that says “House of Love” carrying a large square box.)

Mr. Donut: “Where’s your hamburger? Poo...” (To Honkass as he sets the box down.)

Dr. John: “Hello Mr. Donut!” (Yelling in the Ethel Merman voice from offstage)

(Mr. Donut gets an amused look on his face while Honkass holds back laughter)

Dr. John: “We all love your donuts!” (Loudly singing in accent)

Mr. Donut: “I love it when he wears the hat!” (Smiling broadly at Honkass)

Dr. John: “Peter North loves your donuts!” (Loudly singing in accent)

Honkass: “Here you go... $9.35.” (Holding back laughter. Honkass pays Mr. Donut for the donuts and Mr. Donut leaves the stage area. After a few seconds, John re-enters the stage laughing.)

Honkass: “Dammit John, you are going to get me fired!”

Dr. John: “Like he even knows who Peter North is...”

Honkass: “I’ll bet he does... Take off that stupid hat.”

[Curtain draws closed.]

Believe it or not, that entire scene happened JUST LIKE THAT one 1994 night at 99 Spillihp...

******

In the summer of 1994, we ran a little promotion was known as Phillips 66 Scratch-A-Thon. With any purchase of 8 gallons of gas or a premium car wash, a customer would be given a Scratch-A-Thon game card. The same size as a lottery ticket and featured one square at the bottom to scratch off to reveal your prize.

However what few prizes there were very rare to say the least. The top prize I ever saw was $1.00 off a car wash, and I only saw that a few times. Working the night shift, it was my job to go through them at the end of the day, so I always saw what was redeemed. Corporate sent us three boxes of these cards, likely about 5,000 tickets, with around 300 winning tickets total. And with the top prize being $1.00, the whole thing was really pointless.

Of the remaining winning tickets, the second place prize was a free coffee REFILL. No, not a free coffee, YOU have to supply the cup!

First prize was a free candy bar, 79 cents or less.

What a deal! 

I only saw about 40 of those during the whole run of the promotion. All our boxes seemed to have was “Please play Scratch-A-Thon again!” tickets. It wasn’t long before I had to hear customers whining about the lack of prizes in the game. I gave them all the “It was free... who cares?” line, which didn’t go over well. I’m surprised that I don’t have any of these in the Archives.

For most of the people I worked with, myself included, our mission was to make sure the store ran out of these damn tickets as quickly as possible. This would be accomplished mostly by us looking for the prizes ourselves.

The few candy bar ones I found were used just for that. Coffee refill tickets were set aside and the customer not charged, because that money could then be applied to general merchandise by being rung up differently. Which was a trick I used often. We would average five to ten refill purchases per shift, so you’d take the money, not ring it up, make change if needed, then keep track of what you set aside.

When you have enough to buy that sammich or whatever, ring it up as normal, using your refill fund! Technically not stealing, as there is no plausible way for refills to be inventoried. Besides, I wasn’t being paid enough by Phillips to be ethical. I bought most of Dr. John’s Chuckwagons that way, so I looked at it as being more like Robin Hood.

******

A few weeks after the Tony mess was cleaned up, we received our new manager, Rick, from the Mounds View training store. He fit 99 Spillihp’s personality far better than Tony did, but not as much as Karen. She was happier now that she could deal with the store and not have all the bullshit over her head. She had managed the place for seven years, and it had just gotten to be too much for her.

Rick was less beaten down by the place, but he handled the stress of it worse. Karen could simply  blow off the drama and stupidity, where Rick would just get flustered.

He and I got along fine. Each morning when he came in the store was in decent shape and I did enough work that he didn’t have to deal with third shift being a problem for the store. So he never hassled me on the fact that my friends were now spending virtually my entire shift hanging out with me every night...

Leaving me alone goes a long way towards making me a happy employee. 

******

How to Make a Realistic Turd Prop:

STEP 1:
Purchase (or steal) one Little Debbie Fudge Round. Buying one is the right thing to do, but stealing it makes this funnier.

STEP 2:
With hands, squeeze the Fudge Round and mold it into a cylindrical shape. Don’t try to make it too smooth, it needs some rough spots for texture.

STEP 3:
Place Realistic Turd Prop in conspicuous area. The sidewalk usually got plenty of laughs from me. For our photo display purposes, we used the inside of the gas station.

STEP 4:
Enjoy the hilarity of watching unsuspecting people wonder if someone took a dump right where normal people would walk! It never gets old! (Thanks for helping us demonstrate, Crazy Carl!)

STEP 5:
When all the fake chocolatey poo fun is done, give your Realistic Turd Prop a proper send off with a water burial. It only seems right.

******

During a May 2008 visit to Minnesota, Dr. John and I went to Round Lake 66 to visit Karen, late one night. After 99 Spillihp was sold for the second time, Karen became the assistant manager of the Round Lake store. She was working overnight shift, so we dropped in to bother her for a while.

Back then, I was gathering material for the never really started "Big Audio Mess" project. (A tiny fraction of that project surfaced in a 3 part series of podcasts I did with my My Buddie co-conspirator... But that's another story entirely...) John and I brought my microphone and digital recorder in that night to get Karen's take on the closure of 99 Spillihp, which happened in February 2008.

Amongst the conversations I recorded was one where she was mocking our careers as professional gas station loiterers:

Karen: “How many Little Debbie’s did you guys destroy trying to make fake vomit and poop...?”

Dr. John: “That was for a good cause! Fake poop is AWESOME!”

I have about 30 minutes of audio that John and I recorded with Karen that night. And even though I've never done anything with it yet, I'm really glad I have it.

******

Shortly before I left 99 Spillihp in October 1996, I left my treasured and valued graveyard shift to former roommate and one of my best friends to this day, Trav.

Non-intentional March 2005 re-enactment of Trav and I passing the 99 Spillihp Torch,
over fountain drinks. 

Shortly after his hire and my departure, corporate brewed up a new safety program for employees. This would coincide with different prizes. Trav got a set of coasters that were brilliantly altered to read: "Working for Free".

I only got  this lousy keychain...

******

Food Toss!

“What can I buy for 67 cents?” Dr. John asks me while counting the change in his pocket, by the front counter as I’m straightening the potato chip shelves. “What about THESE!!!!” I ask back as I whip a package of Starburst at his head. The candy hits the BR Package window and explodes, sending Starburst projectiles all over the counter.... 

With that, a new fun game is born. Food Toss became a staple of our late night gas station antics. Cheese Nips, Corn Nuts and candy bars, all tossed at high rates of speed against the Bullet Resistant Package. There was no reason to do this, it was just really funny to us...

Much to Karen’s bemusement, Dr. John and I would take turns throwing things at the windows just to make us laugh. A few years after the fact, we tried to teach this fun game to Crazy Carl, who chose to toss a small sealed cup of flavored non-dairy coffee creamer at the BR Package. Predictably, it exploded on contact, leaving a thick white stream of goo slowly trickling down the window.

Carl observes: “It looks like you had a small jazz accident...” 

We all think he meant to say JIZZ, but jazz ended up being a lot funnier to us. 

And that’s how Wasted Quarter issue 52 got it’s title!

Years later, I had to warn Sonya before a Dr. John visit: “If he comes in and throws something at the windows, don’t worry, it’s ok...”

My last shift at 99 Spillihp was in October 1996. I hadn't seen Dr. John in over a month, when he just walked in. He said he knew that he should stop by that night, since it had been a while.

I told him it was my last shift, and I'd be moving to Colorado in four days.

He asked for my notebook, and wrote this:

After I left, I lived in Englewood, Colorado until October 2003, when I moved back to Coon Rapids.

******

In the years after I left, that area of Coon Rapids underwent a major overhaul. Hardees, Village 10 Shopping Center (including Village 4 Theaters) and Mobil were all torn down, and the roads widened significantly. Hardees was turned into a retaining pond next to the expanded highway exit, Cub Foods grocery store replaced the theater and shopping center, and a new Mobil -some four times as large as the previous building- was built to provide major competition to our beloved little store.

In resizing both Hanson Blvd and Robinson Drive, Phillips lost a large piece of their corner lot and a driveway. A center island was built on Robinson, so access to the store was severely cut back from what it had been in years past. Since getting in and out was now a major inconvenience, business dropped drastically. All the competition from newer stations in the area didn’t help either.

In early 2002, Phillips Petroleum pulled their corporate retail interests from Minnesota, and many other states. With rising costs, they only wanted to operate retail stations in areas nearby to a Phillips owned refinery. After an extended period of time on the market, all corporate Minneapolis/St. Paul stores were sold to Kath Oil, a local company that ran less than five stations before the purchase, swelling their stake to close to 20 retail locations once the sale was completed.

Karen was back in charge, running the store after Rick moved on. With Karen still working there, I continued hanging out whenever I’d come into town. Regardless of what I was doing, 99 Spillihp was still a centrally located place to hang out. I could get needed gas, drinks, smokes, etc before setting out on my merry way to wherever I was heading out to. Everyone knew how to get there, so we could meet up at a place convenient to all.

The new 99 Spillihp cash registers. Finally consistent with the century they were being operated in...

By late March of 2004, I needed a job bad. My unemployment checks had run out in January, my savings had depleted, the resumes I’d sent out were bringing nothing back in return and I could no longer hide out at Flintwood. Karen doubted my sincerity when I’d asked to return. It was supposed to be until I found another job.

I was right back where I’d started. Sitting on the stool at the gas station, scribbling out my depressed thoughts in tiny letters on the pages of a 3 Subject Noteboobs. For just a hair over minimum wage. I wasn’t even full time for the first nine months I was back. It didn’t take long after I was re-hired that I realized just how right Karen was when she said “Things are different here now...”

That’s an understatement. This wasn’t Phillips... Definitely not 99 Spillihp... I was aged 18-21 back then. I was 29 when I came back here. At least there is no long hair/earrings/shaving/nametag bullshit policy to irritate the life out of me this time. And Leon is nowhere to be found...

The sun used to blind me from the east at the end of my shift. Now the sun blinds me from the west in the middle of my shift. I keep ringing things up at 1995 prices. I catch myself sometimes, but not every. So some people are getting 12oz bottles of Mountain Dew for 99 cents instead of $1.19, and candy bars for 65 cents instead of 79. I worked here for too long before, it’s still engraved in my head.

Featured member of the 99 Spillihp graveyard shift hanger-outers, Meister, re-creates the night he built a chair out of 12 packs of pop, and took a nap while everyone else was hanging out...

No longer open 24-7, we shut the place down every night at 11. Or around the time I felt my shift should have been starting. I asked Karen if she’d let us stay open some night so I can do an overnight shift again. The answer was a resounding NO. I even offered to do it for no pay! 

Doesn’t Kath care nothing about nostalgia? 

Working along side of me for most of my return, was Sonya. She spent most of her shifts sitting in the office doorway, in front of the TV watching Maury Povich and Fear Factor, while doing needlepoint and getting peanut residue all over the floor. I was ok with her because I just didn’t care about anything anymore. When I got overly cranky, which was often, she would encourage me to take a break in the car wash or store room, just to improve my mood for an hour or two...

Hi Sonya, I know you're reading this!

When I was alone at the gas station, it was a whole bunch of notebook writing and loud live Mr. Bungle MP3's on my radio. Some customers would mention my writing to me, because I guess it's odd? One time, a second customer chimed in response:

“He’s writing stories about all the customers. Some day he’s going to print them and make us all look stupid!”

We all laughed... But what he didn’t know was at that very moment, I was writing gas station stories, that would appear in Wasted Quarter issue #56, specifically about how stupid the customers had gotten since I'd left and come back...

Wasted Quarter issue 57 ("Best Wasted Ever!") was thrown together quickly, and featured a bunch of poorly written and unfinished ideas. I did this for the sole reason that in the history of Wasted Quarter, I'd never printed an issue on my birfday. And in 2005, I turned 30. It soon became very important that I print Wasted Quarter issue 57 on my 30th birfday...

If it's not finished, I print whatever I have!

This was my one page rant about customers. 

After I printed the issue, Karen kept a copy of this page taped to the wall in the office.

For my lack of patience with the general public, Karen gave me my all time favorite comment that I've ever received on an employee appraisal: “Needs to show more patience with annoying people.”

Karen knew that I was only working there until I found something else. The money simply wasn’t enough at this point in my life. In April 2005, I started the process of ending my stay in Minnesota. I took my old job back in Denver, and was preparing to move back half way across the country. I worked my last shift at 66 KathSpillihp 99 on May 8, 2005.

I left for Colorado two days later... 

******

A few months later, Kath sold 99 Spillihp to a private owner. Karen moved to the Round Lake store, and the other employees were simply let go.

When I came back to Minnesota in October 2006, I stopped in to see what the new owners had done to the place. I saw my old station looking much the same, but a whole lot junkier. 99 Spillihp was always very small, but it wasn’t crammed full of shit. Dr. John (who was with me that afternoon) chose to stay in the car, not wanting to see what had been done to it.

I told him to give his 99 Spillihp eulogy to the dictaphone while I went inside. This is transcribed from what he said:

Well, pardon me while I light a smoke... I really don’t know what to say about the old Phillips. It's kind of bringing a tear to my eye, I must confess. They fired Karen, which sucks. Now I can't even get a free car wash here anymore. I don’t know. I spent so much of my fucking life here -not as much as Aaron though... 

I think I even fucked somebody in the car wash once... YEAH I DID!!! I wont say who, but I will say that we did some reconnaissance. And timed how long it would take to get through the car wash. So we could ensure that we would be fully clothed, or at least clothed enough to not arouse suspicion, once we got out the other end of the car wash. 

I flung human poo at Honkass... I made fake vomit that stained the concrete for nearly a year... The food toss... All the police harassment... My wonder and amazement when I was finally let into the back area and the office, but also the storage room in the car wash. And I still have the pants and the jacket and the gay poet hat. And I'm probably still digesting part of a Chuckwagon. Man... 

I remember calling Honkass up before I ever actually set foot in this place. I'd prank him all the time when he was working overnights... Then I got that shitty little Nissan and I was actually able to come up and see him. Yeah... Weird... Best gas station ever! Because they didn't have anything. Plenty of snack foods, but... They had prophos... And tampons... And now I see Honkass entering the bathroom with a newspaper. That could get ugly... We TP'd that bathroom once. And I know I put a LIttle Debbie Realistic Turd Prop in the toilet. Well, and the floor... And outside... Just to watch people step around it. 

I've stolen so much stuff from this gas station... Chuckwagons... Donuts... Candy bars... You name it... It's almost like my college... It would be akin to going back to your alma mater. That's what it is. And I'm gonna take you with me while I throw away the last thing I will likely throw away in the Phillips garbage can. Which would be the remnants of my White Castle. Looks a lot cleaner now. Now that there's new ownership. 

But I liked the shit hole Phillips. Dumping Prices... No gas $3.00, $50 and up of gas $2, $75 and up in gas $1... $100 in gas or more and you get a free dump. 

Hey Honkass... That sign says “Free Dump.”

During his monolog, Dr. John referenced: "I flung human poo at Honkass..." After I came back to the car, John and I decided to recreate that very event with this photo:

This would have likely been in the Spring of 1996. One morning I was taking out the garbages before I left. Dr. John had been hanging out much of the night and we were going to hang out at Ninja School once my shift ended. He accompanied me outside, but we had to stop to empty the poo dump garbage as well. John found a piece of human poo laying on a stick in some blue liquid by the dump hole. There was always lots of dog poo laying around there, so we had to recognize the poo as human in origin. I’m assuming it slipped out of the hose or something, and who’s gonna stop and pick that up?

We made a few more jokes about it before moving on. After pulling the full and heavy bag out of the can (some wise ass decided to throw away their car mats...) and replacing it, I continued walking to the dumpster. Hearing John say “Hey Honkass!” I turned around in time to see a piece of human poo whiz past my cheek, barely missing me. "John! Stop flinging human poo at me!" He kicked the turd at me, getting enough height and distance to come within inches of splattering me in the face with it.

And if ever there's the perfect metaphor for 99 Spillihp... There you go!

******

I again returned to Coon Rapids in May 2008, and saw this at the corner of Robinson and Hanson. Not only had the identity been stripped, the station is now closed. Dark shelves fully stocked behind locked doors. Karen (now at Round Lake) told me that the new owners just walked away from it in February. No one had been inside to clean up the remaining inventory.

People have looked into reopening it, but it’s just not a good idea anymore. 

Barring some unforeseen miracle, this building is dead.

******

I got word in February 2010 that the underground gas tanks were being removed. That pretty much sealed it's fate as far as re-opening as a gas station would go. A new owner would now have to commit to redoing the pump system in order to re-open. There was zero change of that happening.

My wishes were for a memorial park to be placed on the land. Seemingly too small for anything meaningful, and with limited access, it was no longer the high profile piece of land. Something that doomed 99 Spillihp in the late 1990's, when the Hanson/Robinson intersection was reconfigured, cutting off access to the station. Such hindrances would complicate it's next tenant...

So give it back to nature!

Nothing elaborate, maybe several small ponds and some paths for walking, and a bench for people to sit on and write in their notebooks! Placed exactly where the front counter used to be.

 And a fountain, where the uh... fountain pop used to be...

 And a waterslide, right where the poo dump used to be!

Inevitable news came in November 2010. Over a 3 day span, the canopy was ripped off, buildings razed and ground was leveled. I'd hoped for more pictures of 99 Spilllihp's structural demise, but it was over too quick. Thought I'd be sadder than I was by it. So much of my life and identity came from that building. But that was ages ago. I wasn't that person anymore. Those times are long gone. And while influential, they no longer mattered to life today.

I made it to Crapids again in the fall of 2011. That corner of Hanson and Robinson now housed a credit union. The land looked drastically different than it had one year prior. Though I have no attachment to the credit union that was now here, I'd hoped to get a picture of myself sitting on the curb, writing in my notebook for this issue (Wasted Quarter issue 66).

But that didn't happen and no longer seems important.

******

By Spring of 2011, 99 Spillihp was only a memory and this credit union was growing in it's place.

Have some money... Yay...

So there you have it. A digital interpretation of one of my all time favorite issues of Wasted Quarter!

(The American flag on the cover is still hanging on my bedroom wall.)

******

On January 20, 2018, the world lost Karen Lincoln to a heart attack.

And the world seems a whole lot less cool...

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Just as the hidden track at the end of Nirvana's Nevermind album would startle me if I was outside the locked cashier area, cleaning the store where the radio wasn't, after a lengthy period of musical silence. Usually I was talking to my friends, so there would have been no silence for me to notice... You know what I mean if you've ever dozed off, only to have Kurt Cobain scream you awake...

I've added this short story for only ONE person out there. I know he'll love to see this again. The rest of you... Well, since you found it, you might as well read it...

(Reprinted from Wasted Quarter issue 17, May 1995)

What’s on TV?

It’s 7:30 in the morning. My overnight shift at 99 Spillihp is all over now. So now what do I watch on the TV?

The best bet for entertainment would be to throw in a videotape and watch something I’ve recorded recently, most likely during my shift the previous night... Among those choices, I have a bunch of music videos from MTV’s 120 Minutes, maybe They Might Be Giants is guest hosting again? Hmmm... Comedy Central aired a new episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, and those are always good... There’s also the newest episode of 201 Proof Television, the one where Kerrie was all hot and we said “ass” a lot... The Sci-Fi channel is airing old Transformer cartoons, which would be awesome if they hadn’t been edited with crappy animation on top of the original cartoons. Maybe a better option would be any number of videotapes full of Beavis and Butthead episodes...

Oh no, there it is... I’m going to have to watch Biker Mice From Mars... Again...

I Bitch and Rant about TV’s Biker Mice "Beer Root and Dogs Hot Eat..." 

For lack of anything better to do in the morning before I’ve gone to bed each day this week, I’ve watched “Biker Mice From Mars.” This show is a perfect example of how dumb people think little kids are to buy into this. First off, the long accepted stereotype is that mice eat cheese. We all know that one one, and have all accepted it. Well, these mice (being from Mars remember) eat hot dogs and root beer (Root beer. And we are supposed to buy that they are tough bikers?). I guess pizza was already taken by another group of four crime fighting animals...

Second, the extremely tired bad children's cartoon cliche’s are rampant all over this show. You have your standard evil villain who is never able to execute his plans  due to the zany bumbling antics of his underlings. Seen it, been there, pretty much every cartoon/toy line has had the same formula. Come to think of it, when the big bad villain guy comes up with a plan that almost works, but fails in the end, why doesn’t he reuse it later with all the flaws worked out? That would only make sense. Also, why doesn’t he find some new less zany and bumbling underlings that actually CAN carry out a plan?

My last big -and probably the hugest- complaint with this show being the extreme overuse of bad catchphrases by all characters involved in the show. During the week, I started jotting down notes for my own benefit. For example, the phrase “Let’s rock and ride!” was uttered 22 times over the course of 4 episodes, for an average of 5.5 times per show. In a 23 minute episode, that means it was said almost once every four minutes. Come on. That’s just overkill. Over mindless and annoying phrases that were constantly pounded home were “Let’s whip some tail!” clocking in at 2.75 times per show, and the big bad villain guy calling them “Wretched rodents!” a whopping 3.75 times per show.

My theory was this, as the writers were coming up with the scripts for the show, they’d write one page using all their patented “funny” lines, then forget about writing it completely. Then they’d start over, reusing all the same ideas again. Instead of any actual script writing ideas to come out, the writing process was basically a Xerox machine that was being paid more than I’ve ever made at any point in my life. Luckily the show was not brought back for the fall season, and I never heard from the Biker Mice From Mars ever again. Come to think of it, I don’t even remember seeing the toy line in stores either. The whole concept would probably be forgotten forever had it not been documented in Wasted Quarter.

-Wretched Honkass

I was so wrong...

There's a Biker Mice From Mars game for the PS2... 

And SupaNoFriendo... 

And Nintendo DS... 

Who is out there asking for this?

Tremendous!