Feel the Love

I’m in love with a gas station.

First, let’s define love. In English, we casually use the word “love” to describe everything from spiritual love to lust. The ancient Greeks, however, were more precise. To them, “philia” meant virtuous or brotherly love, “eros” meant passionate love or lust, “storge” was natural affection, and” agape” referred to deeper, more spiritual or sacrificial love.

I love my husband, which incorporates emotional and physical love as well as commitment, spiritual oneness, and a reluctant willingness to put up with his misplaced affection for the snooze alarm. As Prince sang, “I would die for you.” It’s much more intense and all encompassing than what I mean when I say that I love Snickers bars.

My gas station love falls somewhere in between.

For some people, red symbolizes the Maryland Terrapins or the Red Cross. For me, “red” is all about Sheetz.

My love affair began when I used spend between five and six hours driving from Radford, Virginia, to Baltimore. After nearly four hours of road hypnosis, interrupted only on by an occasional appreciation for the rolling, maternal curves of the Appalachian Mountains, I would exit I-83 at Westminster and there it was—the friendly Sheetz, shining in all its red and silver glory, like a light on a hill or an inn in the desert, offering refreshment and calibration for the soul.

Sheetz symbolized civilization, refueling, and progress toward my destination. It offered practical amenities like a clean bathroom and yummy comfort food—warm coffee and a crunchy Snickers bar--all seemingly offered out of magnanimous concern for my well being. All told, the Sheetz experience stirred warm fuzzies and evoked something bordering on bliss in my innermost being--for real.

Sheetz was a marker, letting me know that the journey was not interminable, but would conclude within a reasonable and perceptible time span and that, in the meantime, Sheetz would minister to my most basic needs.

That’s why, when I recently saw a Sheetz truck with the slogan “Feel the love,” I did not resent it as a crass exaggeration or brand identification run amuck. Instead, I considered it a stroke of genius. Indeed, my friends, groove with me, revel in the redness, feel the shiny friendliness of your inner Sheetzness and, in the process, “feel the love.”