“If you avoid conflict to keep the peace, you start a war inside yourself.” –Cheryl Richardson
My Interpretation: Silence is self-betrayal. Rage is just truth with its makeup off. Sometimes the thing you explode about is not the real thing – it is every straw that came before it. Every ignored need. Every ounce of invisible labor. Even if… the trigger is a gas station, the truth is never about the gas station.
I HATE KWIK TRIP & I AM NOT AFRAID TO SAY IT
There are opinions you whisper.
There are opinions you keep to yourself.
There are opinions you only share in the group chat.
& then there are opinions that live inside your bones
like a feral creature
kicking & screaming
demanding a platform.
This is one of them.
I. Hate. Kwik. Trip.
I hate it with a millennial’s-tired fury.
I hate it with the exhaustion of someone who has lived through too much.
I hate it like a woman who has burned out, resurrected, then burned out again.
Everyone else treats this place like the Midwest Vatican.
They worship it.
They praise it.
They defend it like it is their childhood dog.
Meanwhile I walk inside & immediately want to sanitize my soul.
& I would like to discuss why.
THE MYTH OF THE “MAGICAL” KWIK TRIP
People start foaming at the mouth for this place.
“It is clean.”
“It is consistent.”
“It is the best gas station in America.”
“They treat workers well.”
“You can trust them.”
“They are employee owned.”
Okay.
Sure.
Cute.
But consistent in WHAT?
Gas prices designed by Satan?
Construction rates that defy natural law?
Being located on every corner like an MLM?
Kwik Trip is everywhere.
It haunts.
It multiplies like gremlins tossed in a puddle.
One opens
& suddenly five more appear
two cities over
built in the dead of night
like they spawned from the corn.
This is not convenience.
This is a Midwest infestation.
THE GAS PRICES SHOULD BE ILLEGAL
Every other station:
$2.99
$3.05
$3.12
Kwik Trip?
$3.59.
Not because it makes sense.
Not because it has to be.
Because they CAN.
It is the Midwest’s landlord.
You pump gas here like you are personally funding corruption.
THE FOOD IS A CRY FOR HELP
People defend Kwik Trip food like it is Michelin rated.
“The breakfast sandwiches!”
“The chicken!”
“The donuts!”
Let us be serious for one small second.
Kwik Trip food smells like hopelessness.
It tastes like “I gave up today but gently.”
It sits in your stomach like a bad memory.
Food should not look tired.
Food should not look like it needs a nap.
Food should not stare at you from under glass like it is begging for release.
I do not trust hot food that glistens in fluorescent lighting & existential dread.
& this is not because I am too good for cheap food –
I am aware of how long food should actually sit out vs bacteria growth. #statistics
99 CENT BUTTER IS A TRICK
Yes, they have cheap butter.
Yes, people lose their entire minds over it.
But baby…
if butter is 99 cents?
It is not butter.
It is dairy-adjacent lies.
It is edible deception wrapped in paper.
It is a red flag in rectangular form.
This is how they lure you.
This is the gateway drug.
Come for the butter,
leave supporting the Midwest version of Big Brother.
THE CULT ENERGY IS STRONG
People treat Kwik Trip employees like they are chosen.
Like they descended from the heavens.
Like the corporate handbook was handwritten by an archangel.
Let me tell you something real:
☒ Not every Kwik Trip treats its workers well.
☒ Not every station is safe.
☒ Not every location is magic.
☒ Not every store is a utopia.
Corporate sells a dream.
Workers live the reality.
I have seen exhausted employees
⇥ underpaid
⇥ undermanned
⇥ overworked
⇥ doing everything
⇥ while customers act entitled.
But people still say,
“Kwik Trip is perfect.”
No babe, it is not.
Nothing with roller dogs is perfect.
THE ATMS ARE A PUBLIC HAZARD
Kwik Trip ATMs look like they were built in a RadioShack basement.
They take your card slowly
like they are thinking about it.
They reject deposits like they are personally offended.
They are always “temporarily unavailable.”
They beep like they are in distress.
They are emotionally unwell.
I refuse to trust a financial device located between a soda fountain & a stack of bananas.
That is not banking.
That is a hostage situation.
WHY DO THEY ALWAYS SMELL LIKE HOT DOGS
Explain this.
Why.
Why.
Why.
Does every Kwik Trip smell like hot dogs
↪︎ even at 6 a.m.
↪︎ even when no food is cooking
↪︎ even when no one is near the counter?
It is like the walls are seasoned with grease.
Like the air is infused with 14 years of regret & roller bite decisions.
I walk in & feel like my clothes need therapy.
THE REAL REASON I AM MAD
You knew this part was coming.
It is not about Kwik Trip.
It is never about Kwik Trip.
It is about how adulthood keeps asking me to do everything
✗ alone
✗ with fewer resources
✗ less support
✗ less convenience
✗ less predictability
✗ less help
✗ & more pressure.
Kwik Trip represents the part of adulthood where EVERYTHING becomes harder
for absolutely no reason
& yet you STILL have to figure it out.
It represents:
⤷ being the only one who plans
⤷ being the only one who handles errands
⤷ being the only one who keeps the household together
⤷ being the only one who thinks ahead
⤷ being the only one who notices what needs to be done
⤷ being the only one who shows up
↳ even when you are exhausted
↳ empty
↳ unseen
↳ unsupported.
Kwik Trip is not a gas station to me.
It is a metaphor for invisible labor.
The emotional load no one sees
but every mother carries.
THE HEAD TILT TRUTH
Whenever I say I hate Kwik Trip
people tilt their heads like I have insulted a golden retriever.
But I am not enchanted by inconvenience.
I am not dazzled by butter when my bandwidth is hanging by a thread.
I am not charmed by coffee when life feels like a collapsing Jenga tower.
I am not seduced by gas pumps when adulthood is a series of unlearned lessons & learned panic.
Kwik Trip is a trigger.
A symbol.
A pressure point.
But at least I can laugh now.
At least I can name it.
At least I can reclaim the humor before the rage claims me.
Xoxo ♡
Whisper to the ghosts. Yell into the void. Just don’t be an asshole.