Remember when, very briefly, and for only a few but very vocal motorists (as in electric motor-ists), gas stations were absolute hellscapes where any manner of unpleasantness might go down, and at a minimum, they were filthy places one vacated as quickly as possible once the precious fuel had been dispensed? This guy laid it on particularly thick.
As entertaining as the destination of that link is, I’m actually thinking of that guy because, truth be told, gas stations can be sketchy places where weird things go down. Most are not, of course, as we live in the year 2026, and if you’re in a decently populated area, your local gas stations are probably perfectly benign, well-lit places to fill your tank and potentially grab a roller hot dog. The hot dog is the scariest thing in this scenario.
… Usually. There are times, late at night and well off the beaten path, that a gas station can feel like a spooky or even menacing place. The only truly off-putting gas station I’ve encountered was in the most middle section of nowhere between Texas and Rhode Island, where I found myself in need of gas as the family slept. The gauge was close enough to E that stopping sooner rather than later felt prudent, and Waze said a station was nearby, so why wait? A few turns and barely a mile off the highway, I thought I had somehow been transported to a primordial forest. As I crested a hill, the gas station appeared: two dimly lit pumps, an open sign in the window, and a collapsing door over the lone service bay. Two figures appeared as silhouettes, each with the faint orange glow of a cigarette in their head shapes. One nudged the other to look at the stranger they were about to meet.
(Unrelated scene from Duel, enjoy!)
I noped right out of there and drove like a hyper-miler to make sure I made it to a legit fuel-and-food oasis butted up to the highway and full of both light and patrons. I’ve seen horror movies, I know what’s up.
Your turn. What’s your sketchiest gas station experience?
Top graphic image: DepositPhotos.com
There was a gas station near where I used to live that was right next to a bus station, occasionally there’d be folks shuffling around asking what city or state they were in and wanting directions to the Salvation Army, which was a few miles away toward the center of town. I suspect they were being put on buses and sent out of town by another city without being fully informed of what was happening to them
Driving cross-country during COVID lockdown somewhere in the US South – Tennessee maybe?
Stopped off at a random gas station to get fuel and pee.
Went into the mens room – Which was as disgusting as it gets.
I won’t get into it, but I could have taken a dump in the middle of the floor and nobody would have known the difference.
Went outside, gagging and pissed on the side of the road instead.
Then there’s driving down to see my parents in Augusta.
Cross the SC state line outside Charlotte, and exit the freeway to a Shell: Pumps not working.
Low fuel indicator light glowing, I drive up the road to an Exxon where the pumps work.
Walk inside to pee – and I realize it’s a fucking liquor store and bar where they also sell gas.
No wonder the US South is as fucked as it is.
Went to a place that had cheaper gas than usual. Pumps had video ads and seemed to pump very slow. No vapor capture (which might be illegal in my state?). The video ads kept looping to a part that insisted I leave the pump unattended to go inside and get a deal on an energy drink or something. My car doesn’t have a big gas tank, but I feel like I saw it loop back to that at least 3 times.
This wasn’t in the middle of nowhere. This was like, on a major road in the city. I still pass by it on the way to get groceries.
I tried “gas station heroin” from East St. Louis, IL. Specifically, Neptune’s Fix. That’s pretty sketchy. It was a very interesting velomobile ride back home, to say the least.
Two of them – one was a gas station near a cheap apartment I lived in many years ago whose primary trade was absolutely not either fuel or twinkies, as the collection of feral tweakers out front would attest (note: I am a city dweller with an interest in the practical side of personal neurochemistry, I promise I’m not describing homeless people or drug users as some kind of scary big bad – feral tweaker is a different category than either of those).
The one that really scared me, though, was a gas station in rural Colorado that had an all-you-can-eat Indian food buffet out and uncovered in the middle of the store. I think I was in bigger danger of leaving my intestines on the floor there than at the first place.
Oddly enough, I haven’t really experienced any frightening or dangerous kind of things at gas stations that I recall, but there was a generic name station in Detroit that I used to frequent because it was the cheapest around where two notable things happened. First one that’s not that sketchy, but was a funny Detroit kind of thing where a homeless guy came up and demanded I give him a dollar. At first I thought I was being mugged by the world’s most pessimistic thief (or realistic considering the look of my car), then I realized he was “asking”. I was living on a ramen packet a day, so I told him he ate better than I did and he either believed me or realized he wasn’t getting anywhere and moved on. Second one was months later when I tried to start my Subaru in the winter and it had no interest in waking up. Cranked on and off for about 20 minutes (big battery and didn’t take much to turn it over) before what seemed like a single cylinder banged into life and kept running, shaking the car, as long as I kept it at least at 1/4 throttle. Went to a more expensive name brand station a block the other way unable to get over probably 8 mph and propped the throttle a bit with a scraper to keep it running as I pumped new fuel and threw in some Stabil for the hell of it suspecting water as I recalled seeing a garden hose at that garbage station very late at night looking like it was going into a cover in the ground. At the time, I thought it must have been something else because WTF would do that? Within about a hundred yards of leaving the station, the engine coughed, all cylinders came back, and it never complained again. Needless to say, it was the last time I used that station. News had an expose just after about local stations with suspiciously low prices watering down their fuel tanks at night and how a bunch of new cars incurred major damage from it.
In high school, a friend of mine and I decided to play “Let’s see where this road ends.” (Do kids still do that anymore, with GPS and such? Probably not. Shame.) The road we chose was US Route 34, Ogden Avenue to us residents of the Chicago suburbs. We headed east in her Granada, just as the sun was going down. Turns out, 34 runs into US 66, still called Ogden Ave, and dead-ends at the Chicago River. You go under a bridge, and it just sort of peters out.
“Well that’s boring,” my friend said. “I’m thirsty, let’s find something to drink.” So we turned around and headed back out of town. We stopped at a dimly-lit gas station, and she went inside to grab us some drinks. She returned thirty seconds later empty-handed, with a seriously creepy-looking dude following close behind her. She jumped in the car and turned the key, and for a second I was sure it wasn’t going to start; I had seen too many horror movies, even back then. But the old Granada sputtered to life, she threw it in drive, and away we went.
To reinforce the point that we were out of our depth, a gunshot rang out from a few blocks away as we were leaving the lot. We rolled up the windows and ran the next few stop lights. We finally did stop at get a Coke – at a nice clean White Hen Pantry in Naperville.
Not a gas station, but meets the spirit of the question. Back in 2001 a friend and I drove from San Diego to Vegas for a few days. On the way back on a Tuesday we decided to stop at the famous Zzyzx Rd exit off I-15 just to see what was there. Shortly after the pavement ended we got a flat tire, which is when we learned the factory lug wrench in his car wouldn’t fit the aftermarket wheels he got.
Called AAA and they arrived about 2 hours later and took us into Baker, CA, a tiny highway roadstop along I-15 (home of the world’s tallest thermometer!). The tow truck took us to a couple of tire shops which were closed, and we were losing hope of making it home that night. We pulled into a third tire shop outside of town that clearly was a former gas station from old Highway 91 days, and it was open.
The owner looked like Jonathan Winters in It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World except with an eye patch, and the employee was a skinny greasy guy in a white tank undershirt who reminded me of Kid Rock in 30 years. Now that I think about it, he did kinda look like Kid Rock today. We thought there was no way they’d have a 205/50R15 or whatever it was on the ’94 Integra we were driving. But Kid Rock hopped up into an old semi trailer they had on the property and to our utter amazement he pulled out a brand new Goodyear in the right size and got it installed and us back on the road fairly quickly. A pleasant surprise since we totally expected to be walking back into town and staying at some seedy motel.
Have you ever seen the movie The Big Empty? It’s set and filmed in Baker, and from the couple of times I’ve been there, it’s a pretty good portrayal of the town and its denizens. Weird-ass town.
I guess I have lived a very sheltered life. I usually start looking for gas at 100 miles to empty and have never had to stop somewhere sketchy. I did once stop at a shack with a pump in the middle of Kansas because the wife needed to use the toilet, which was accessed by a door around the corner on the outside. I gassed up and bought some snacks. It was run down, but the proprietor was nice enough. Gas and food was way overpriced, but, hey, middle of Kansas and not much competition.
Sketchy? No. I think it’s kind of funny. I was propositioned by a prostitute. It’s happened to me three times in my life. Besides a nightclub once, the other two times were outside of gas stations. What is it with gas stations?
A gas station is the only place I have ever been approached by one. It was very weird. I left another gas station without even getting out of the car because there was a pack of (very obviously) hookers hanging out at the pumps. Don’t go to Indianapolis
Crap. All of my friends and family know it. I’ve never posted it publicly. I used to be a field service engineer for ophthalmic laser systems years ago, my first job out of school. I traveled ALOT. Took a redeye out to Tampa, Florida. The doctor’s office wouldn’t be open for hours, it wasn’t worth getting a room yet. So I drove around. Finally, I realized I didn’t know where I was…these were the paper map days. I pull into a gas station, ask the attendant in the nice bullet proof booth how I can get back to the 75. In a really think accent (either Puerto Rican or Cuban is my guess from what I was told…I don’t know, I’m from California and really removed from that part of the world), he starts telling me where to go. Suddenly, he changes tone, “Hey man, look at me when I’m talking to you”. I smile, and say ‘yeah, sure’. He pops back into the prior tone, “OK you go there and take a turn at….hey man, look at me when I talk to you”. I slowly start to back up. The guy leaves the booth and starts moving towards me. I turn, but slowly still backing up. The coked-out bastard continues talking to me. Flip flopping between the two personalities. Florida man? Yeah, it’s real.
I was coming home from a funeral. I needed gas, and it was about 1-2am. I was waiting in line, I think paying at the moment. There was a couple behind me, and I asked the woman “When are you due?”
She was not pregnant.
“ I noped right out of there and drove like a hyper-miler to make sure I made it to a legit fuel-and-food oasis butted up to the highway and full of both light and patrons”
Ahhh yes, been there, done that. At first sign of tribal inbred mutants with cloven hooves, I hightail it outta there.
Oh, Pete, you and Rufus have made my day.