I should have known when I saw the sign stating: “Under new management – truckers welcome.”

The previous owner must have gone broke or was run out of town, and the truckers didn’t feel welcome for some reason.

A sign like that is a dead giveaway. Everybody knows truckers don’t care if they’re welcome or not, as long as the food is good. (Did you ever see a sign stating: “Truckers not welcome?”)

I walked by the sign without even thinking and sat at the end of the counter. I was in a hurry, and ordered apple pie and coffee. What could be more American than apple pie and coffee?

Well, I’ll tell you straight away this wasn’t an American apple pie. This was about the most foreign piece of cookery I have ever seen. This pie was floating around the saucer in some sort of liquid, I assume, dripped from the refrigeration unit. The crust was soggy. The apples were soggy. It was like pie a la moat.

But, I was in a hurry and began to eat as best I could.

Then, I heard a woman’s voice in the kitchen: “I hope we make some money at lunch time, `cause I got to buy some Pine Sol and see if I can get rid of that smell.”

I began to think, I’m having enough trouble trying to get this pie down without hearing about any smells in the kitchen.

The woman comes out of the kitchen and stands at the end of the counter. She says, “Boy, that’s the awfulest smell I ever seen. Have you ever smelled a skunk up close like that? You know when you go by one on the road you just git a whiff, but up close they smell just awful!”

The other customer was finished eating, and I suppose he was listening, but I couldn’t look up. Sometimes, it’s best to mind your own business.

“My dog got into it with a skunk this morning, and boy, did he get nailed,” she continued. “My boyfriend heard a racket out in the yard and ran out to break it up – and that skunk squirted the dog right in the face just as he got there.

“Frank came running back in the house with the dog right behind him, and before I could slam the door, he ran in and rubbed his face all over the rug.”

Frank? I thought.

“The dog,” she said. “And now I got to git some Pine Sol or something to git rid of that smell. You can put tomato juice on a dog, but you can’t do that with a rug.”

How about Frank? I wondered.

“I don’t know how I’m gonna git rid of that smell,” she went on. And how about Frank? I thought to myself.

The bill for that apple pie float and a lousy cup of coffee was $3.80. It was worth it, though – I did get a column out of it.