‘While this author doesn’t disagree with the sentiment in its common context, a traveler is right to be suspicious of any business that takes seriously the adage: ‘It’s about the journey, not the destination.’ In this, the free market, the product must take center stage, or it will be met with suspicion.

Though, there is a loophole.

Sometimes a product can be so bad- a service so grueling- that those who engage with it feel bonded in misery. The camaraderie, the story, becomes the anti-product and the original purchase is relegated to a position of practical necessity, like an egg carton to eggs. That’s why this is a loophole rather than an exception, and it’s why a business like ‘Mazcar’s Magical Mashed Potato Sandwiches,’ which sports ‘The World’s Longest Drive-Thru,’ carries on in even the most hostile economic situations.

Misery begets misery, and the misery that ‘Mazcar’s’ serves up is, at least, the sort we choose to inflict upon ourselves.’

‘Mazcar’s’ is built into an otherwise unoccupied parking garage which was constructed for an exciting new outlet mall and made obsolete by the mall’s failure to materialize. Originally occupying just three rooms, ‘Mazcar’s’ sandwiches were featured in a viral video post and became a ‘whole thing’ overnight.

This, I learn from the woman behind me in line.

Truth be told, I’ve been cutting some corners in my research, favoring the practical for the fanciful. For instance, I know that the average time spent in ‘Mazcar’s Drive-Thru’ is around 10 hours, which is down from 13 when I first passed it a few years ago and represents an all-time low since the precipitating incident (what I now know was a video).

Considering the long wait time, I’ve packed a great deal of food and water for Hector and I and worked out a bathrooming solution for the both of us: a small litter box for him and an uncomfortable in-pants urinal thing for me. I’ve read the few rules that ‘Mazcar’s’ has posted regarding drive-thru etiquette and studied the strategies of those who have come before me. Most agree that the longest one can be out of line before losing their place is not so much a matter of time but of distance, that is, the distance between the front of one’s own vehicle and the back of the vehicle ahead. More than one vehicle length is dangerous. More than about 175% of one’s vehicle length is an endgame most of the time. Everyone seems to agree that the line won’t put up with a two-vehicle gap and there is a lot of frustration in a line so long. It snaps with a great deal of force.

The only other thing I learned about ‘Mazcar’s’ is that I should prepare to be disappointed. The drive-thru spirals up the center of the garage and then back down around the outside, weaving in and out of itself. Microphone sign-boards check and re-check customer orders, sometimes offering false assurances that food is being fast-tracked, other times seeming to flub details in order to test customers of their own preferences. It’s complicated and almost beautiful but the sandwiches are said to be pretty awful. Food should taste good or be easy to eat or healthy, at least, but ‘Mazcar’s’ are none of the above. Reviews say they’ve only gotten worse and a profit data suggests this may be by design. The worse the sandwiches get, the cleaner the catharsis.

I verify with a speaker to my left that my order is still #338 and that I wanted just ‘Mazcar’s Orginal:’ two mashed potato patties in a sort of grilled cheese formation. It’s the cheapest offering and the hardest to screw-up. The woman behind me tries to strike up a conversation but I pretend not to hear her. Someone honks in the distance.

It’s been three hours, now. By midnight I should have my sandwich and then Hector and I will have to risk camping on the outskirts of the garage or driving to the nearest motel, some thirty miles north. Seems like a waste to spend the money on a room I’ll only use for half a night, but then, I’ve gotten sort of used to sleeping on the ground.

-traveler

‘The origin of ‘The Essentialized Americatown’ in the Americatown district of San Francisco (and the subsequent Americatowns within those Americatowns) is commonly misunderstood as a bit of an inside joke. In actuality, ‘The EA’ was formed of such serious intentions that it passes as satire for most of the people that come to understand what it is: an unabashed display of patriotism taken to the extreme.

The first level of Americatown is, what might be termed, the ‘Las Vegas’ version of the country. Most of the nation’s monuments exist in miniature within its bounds and lawlessness is kept to the sort of guilty fun one expects in a shady casino. Americatown II (and here we’ve chosen to assign numbers though the many sub-Americatowns recognize no such tiering) is much more serious, where lawlessness is taken to a near-fascist place, where citizens are expected to obey the rules police and politicians flout. Those same police and politicians turn a blind eye on the antics of Americatown III, which is undergoing a perpetual civil war, the basis of which is both sides claiming ownership of Americatown III, which professes no allegiance whatsoever.

This goes on and on- there are other books that detail the various Americatowns in all there eccentricities. What’s important to this tome is the story of what exists at the very core Americatown (and, here, we are unsure which number to assign). It’s rumored that, in the very center of all Americatowns, there exists a loaded gun that is constitutionally above the law. Six shots with no legal consequence- that is the core of Americatown, America.’

-an excerpt, Autumn by the Wayside

‘The statue once called ‘The Melty Miser’ of west Alabama didn’t start out melty. In fact, it didn’t even start out a miser. ‘The Melty Miser’ was born into this world as ‘Happy Harold,’ the manic-looking mascot of a local hardware chain. The statue was erected in the style of Texas’ cement cowboys, made to loom over an empty stretch of highway and alert travelers that various power tools were available at unbeatable prices just off the next exit.

What set ‘Harold’ apart initially was his size. It’s said his signature cowlick brought him to nearly 80’ at the outset. The great irony of ‘Happy Harold’ is, of course, that his height was achieved with the use of subpar materials- seemingly some sort of thick, experimental plastic. It was only a few weeks before his features began to droop under the hot, Alabama sun.

Thus, the ‘melty.’

By the next year, ‘Happy Harold’s’ smile had inverted and his brow had taken on the unbridled cruelty of a fairy tale villain. The money bag he once held high (to indicate a celebration of what he had saved on hardware), slowly dropped behind his back, the arm twisting unnaturally, until it settled into a position that looked distinctly like he was attempting to keep the money away from roadside viewers.

Thus, the ‘miser.’

This is all ancient history, of course, because ‘The Melty Miser’ collapsed during a heatwave in 2021, his body sprawled backward in the field off the highway. Was anyone hurt? Well, that’s a good question- and one that seems particularly pointed given how quickly the owner of ‘The Melty Miser’ chose not to dismantle the Miser, or even to just let heat and gravity make a puddle out of him. The man chose to bury the Miser under a mountain of dirt and those hollow parts, kept solid in the cool earth, now form the Wayside attraction known as ‘Melty Miser Caverns.’’

The entrance to ‘Melty Miser Caverns’ doesn’t look like much but the maps I’ve located online all suggest that it roughly represents the anus of the titular Melty Miser. Maybe that’s why I loiter with Hector at the statue’s abandoned base, all shorn bolts and shattered plastic.

Finally, I push down my dignity and pull Hector into the caverns proper. We wander through the unstable stalactite fields of the groin (where visitors customarily use lighters to melt little plastic icicles from the ceiling). We peer into the psychedelic maze of the arms and squeeze through the tight passage formed by the left hand’s middle finger fusing with the money bag sometime post-impact and pre-burial (now heavily graffitied in UV-reactive paints). Finally, we emerge from between the Melty Miser’s lips and into a hollowed out room of natural earth. There, we cast our light on the excavated face of ‘The Melty Miser,’ massive and horrible in the dark.

-traveler

There are two fairly obvious red flags in the presentation of the otherwise very cheery ‘World’s Biggest Snowglobe.’ The first is that it’s walled off entirely- completely hidden from those who neglect to pay. It even sports a sort of gazebo structure that conceals it from satellite cameras, though the official purpose is to ‘prevent the unlikely scenario that light, refracted through the globe, might cause fires in the surrounding area.’ Profit concerns would have been a more convincing lie.

The second red flag is the price of the ticket that allows you to enter into “The Snowglobe” itself. Performed with scuba gear, this ticket is… free.

‘Would we call ‘The World’s Biggest Snowglobe’ a habitat? As much a habitat as any zoo, perhaps, because the people behind the glass live there but they don’t seem to like it much, even if they go through the motions of survival.’

I pay $20 for the regular entry ticket- the one that only allows me to interact with the globe from the outside. It’s the easiest $20 I’ve spent on the Wayside, if I’m honest. It has all the protective implications of a bribe and it comes with a free slushie.

‘The World’s Biggest Snowglobe’ is bigger than any building in the town I grew up. The shade from the gazebo is offset by lights within ‘The Globe’ itself. Street lights. Headlights. Bedroom lights, one has to assume. There is a village submerged in the glass and, though the cars and trees are fixed and decorative, the residences are clearly resided in. Two men swim past me, blown out of proportion by the curvature of their enclosure. I vigorously tap the glass, as signs all around the base of ‘The Globe’ suggest I do, and one of the men takes the time press his face up close. I assume this is necessary for him to get a good look at me, but it also allows him to flash a piece of bare skin, on which a message has been crudely tattooed:

Help. We are prisoners.

The men hurry on their way, and I take a sip of my slushie. Blue raspberry.

The only revelation, here, is that the people inside ‘The World’s Biggest Snowglobe’ assume the only thing stopping people from helping them escape is ignorance. They can’t know that, even from the outside, their situation is clear as day.

-traveler

“METAL MAN, METAL MAN!”

The screaming robot of ‘Metal Man National Park’ waves his arms in my direction. I am the only visitor, currently, and thus the sole object of his attention. The Metal Man is… fused in the rock. Or is part of the rock. I approach a sign nearby and find that the question of fused-with/spawning-from/imprisoned-in the rock is still debated, with angry academics on each side attempting to out-talk each other while simultaneously blocking the research of critical peers. It would mean a lot of weird things if the metal man were spawning from the rock. Some less weird things if he were simply fused with it. Nothing weird at all if he were imprisoned in it, given the country’s incarceration statistics.

‘Pity the Metal Man who, for many years, was mistaken for a prank and who we now know is as sentient and as miserable as the rest of us. The oldest visual proof of the Metal Man is dated 1949. He flails next to three cowboys, each standing a cautious yard or so from his blurry limbs. Behind them, ‘Metal Man National Park’ stretches into a desert not yet blighted by the highways that divvy it now. Though these men were perhaps not the first to sight the Metal Man, this picture heralds decades of playful torment at the hands of curious tourists before the installation of a low metal railing in 1994 discouraged visitors from physically interacting with him.

The Metal Man has an uncanny ability to predict thunderstorms, an attribute he showcases by extending a steel rod from behind his neck and into the air above him in order to capture lightning. Some go as far as to suggest he calls the storms.’

I step over the metal railing, as many have before me, and follow a well-worn trail until it stops a few feet from the Metal Man. He’s pauses, arms slack, and then extends a hand my direction.

Here’s the thing about the Metal Man: he looks strong. Metal is just generally stronger than flesh, right? So, even though I haven’t read any cases of the Metal Man pulling someone apart limb from limb despite the many people that stand closer than I am to take selfies with his frantic form, I don’t really feel safe giving him my hand either. This seems to register with the Metal Man. He tries the same thing with Hector and is snubbed again.

He shouts: “Metal man!” This time at the sky.

He kicks at the rock around him, a motion that has broken off much of the stone and thoroughly dented his foot. He powers down suddenly, arms clattering to his sides. The Metal Man’s inside whir and buzz: an established indication of his idle state. The lightning rod begins to extend from his neck.

There isn’t a cloud in the sky when I leave ‘Metal Man National Park’ but I don’t doubt the Metal Man himself and gamble on a southward retreat. The storm gathers behind Hector and I and soon engulfs the park, leaving the Metal Man to the rain.

-traveler