Buckatunna Inventory

We went to visit my parents and Dr. Theresa was eating oysters, because that's what people do down there, and in an oyster she found a little, round, perfectly formed pearl! I have been eating oysters as long as I can remember, and I can't recall myself or anyone else finding a pearl in one. I have a strong feeling, however, that this is another "wild turkey incident." That is to say it's like the time I was excited to see wild turkeys standing by the side of the road and everyone told me that they see wild turkeys standing by the side of the road nonstop, every roadside is just lined end to end with wild turkeys. So I guess you can't eat a bowl of gumbo without finding a whole strand of immaculate pearls, good for you. Anyway, on our way back we stopped at a gas station in Buckatunna, Mississippi, to stretch our legs. In the course of leg-stretching, I wandered past the chips and gum and such, past what I would call "road snacks," to a corner of the store containing a couple of shelves of what I would call "pantry items." And I got so interested for some reason that I took out my stupid-ass jotting book and started jotting down what groceries were available at the gas station in Buckatunna, Mississippi: 1 squeeze bottle of Hershey's strawberry (!) syrup, 2 small containers of Thousand Island dressing, 1 small packet of brown gravy mix (generic), 1 small jar of maraschino cherries, 1 jar of bread-and-butter pickles, 3 bottles of breakfast syrup (one of them in the distinctive form of Mrs. Butterworth), 4 boxes of pancake mix, 10 large cans of fruit cocktail, 2 cans of barbecue-flavored Vienna sausages, 8 cans of Vienna sausages with jalapeno. There was more. But just as I was registering my surprise that there were zero cans of plain Vienna sausages, it was time to go.