Time running out to visit gas station that pumps Cheez-Its

By Chuck Woodbury
Please, if you should ever meet me and offer a gift, please do not give me a box of Cheez-It crackers. No matter how big a box, I will consume every cracker within hours, and I will then “fall off my wagon” and become addicted again. It’s an issue with me, has been for decades. My name is Chuck and I am a Cheez-It-aholic.

I love Cheez-Its. I do. I do. I do. So you understand, right?

And so, when a particular news item from reader Tom Speirs appeared on my computer screen the other day, I went crazy: A gas station, about a thousand miles from me in Joshua Tree, California, is operating as a shrine in the desert to the legendary yellow cracker, complete with a gas pump that pumps — no, not petrol, but CHEEZ-ITs. Can you believe it??

It is entirely possible that I have died and arrived in Heaven. I say that because Heaven would not be Heaven without Cheez-Its.

Back to reality

Alas, when something seems too good to be true, it usually is, right? Okay, this kind of qualifies. The “Cheez-It Stop” opened last Monday and is closing tomorrow (Sunday) at 6 p.m. I do not happen to own a private jet to get there in time. This surely is my greatest disappointment in recent times, next to the news that I was not invited on the first mission to Mars.

How can the Kellogg company, which owns Cheez-It, be allowed to open such an incredible place — heaven on earth for some people — for less than a single week, and then close it. Someone must be arrested for this. Talk about corporate irresponsibility!

But there’s more

The station not only dispenses Cheez-Its from a special pump, its store (as you can see in the picture below) sells just about every flavor of Cheez-It ever made. I can’t imagine eating anything but the original flavor, but I might consider it, given the opportunity.

And there are other things — hats, cards, T-shirts. It’s similar to the Spam Museum in Minnesota, although that has about 100 times the number of products that this temporary shrine does. But I don’t care, I don’t even like Spam. Although, that said, I must tell you that the last time I visited the Spam Museum I purchased a pair of Spam glow-in-the-dark boxer shorts, which still serve me well as sleeping attire on summer nights. Sometimes, late at night after visiting my home’s Comfort Station to empty my personal holding tank, I get back in bed and glance under the sheets!

“Something is under there!” I panic, silently screaming. “There’s a light!” Then I remember my glow-in-the-dark boxers. “Chuck, you idiot,” I think!

I am pausing now

I now have such a craving for Cheez-Its that I can’t stand it. It is taking enormous, almost superhuman willpower not to drive to the store.

Okay, 10 minutes have passed. I can no longer concentrate on my writing. I am all messed up. I need Cheez-Its. I mean I need them really, really bad!

But before I go, in case you are anywhere near Joshua Tree right now, which is right next to the National Park of the same name, you’ll find the Cheez-It Stop at 61943 Twentynine Palms Highway. But hurry. Leave now. The place is closing tomorrow afternoon, a travesty.

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