Nice N Easy

My favorite hangout spot in middle school was a gas station.

Nice N Easy was a ten-minute walk down the road from Eagle Hill Middle School. During the last few weeks of the school year and throughout the summer, it was a favorite haunt of a large portion of the male student body. We would saunter in, having compiled loose change dug out from the bottom of folding velcro Yankees wallets and crumpled ten dollar bills earned from mowing lawns, and wander back and forth between the warming cabinet stocked with pizza slices and the refrigerated shelves lined with sodas and beer and feel like the kings of the world.

Nice N Easy, a local chain endemic to Central and Upstate New York, was the uniquely American sort of gas station that offered fresh food in addition to the usual roadtrip fare of Slim Jims and Doritos. The sub sandwiches were well-above Subway quality, and the pizza, while greasy to a plate-damaging level, was mouthwatering. There was no …