The other day I read quickly in my Facebook feed that Mebane, North Carolina, will become home to the first Buc-ee’s “convenience store” (nothing about this seems convenient, even to its, er, “fans”) slash travel center in the state. In fact, expansion of I-40 to accommodate its alleged 25,000 visitors per day (!) has been underway, seemingly in starts and stops familiar to most of us governed by corrupt departments of transportation across the country, since late last summer-

There has already been some grading work done and electricity added at the site off Interstate 85/40 to prep it for Buc-ee’s.

Mebane Mayor Ed Hooks said in the next few weeks that the North Carolina Department of Transportation will soon get to work on the project that will help Mebane handle the traffic Buc-ee’s is expected to draw.

“There’s already been a lot of surveying done, so they’re on the verge of getting started with great anticipation by a lot of people, and we’re excited about it,” Hooks said.

A couple of things pop out as remarkable just at first glance: travel centers used to be constructed to make long-distance travelers’ and truckers’ lives on the road a little easier, even in their pursuit of profit, and not for a cult following (WHY!) to shop ghastly branded merchandise-knick knacks; and this is pushing forward as the official response to the situation in Western North Carolina stagnates and more inhabitants are sucked into the abyss of destruction and neglect – more accurately, state- and federal-sanctioned depopulation. Like with the fires that recently blazed through Southern California, drones of branded climate-concerned doomers and scolds appeared at once to tell us this was climate catastrophe doing its thing and doing nothing else of note for people who are still suffering, who still haven’t been able to account for all their dead months after the fact.

But some more serious people – actual activists – have not only offered a fuller analysis of the toll on the environment in total, but they also worked extensively to try to prevent this expansion into North Carolina at all. From the above-linked 7 Directions of Service article that cited Buc-ee’s expectation to see 25,000 patrons a day, they explain that

Studies show emissions from the concentration of just 200 running vehicles can create harmful conditions for breathing. Buc-ee’s 25,000 estimated daily visitors will result in an air pollution hot-spot. The location is home to multiple schools, a church and low-income neighborhoods, and is already overburdened with heavy air pollution from semi-truck emissions and Stericycle, a medical waste incinerator…

The entirety of the great Occaneechi Trading Path ran from Virginia to Alabama, and a significant section of the path in Mebane, NC is threatened by Buc-ee’s.

The Occaneechi Trading Path was more than just a means for trade for Southeastern Native American communities. It was a way of sharing language, stories, technology and culture…

Buc-ee’s inescapable billboards and cheap trinkets will only draw visitors away from downtown. As one elder put it, “when tourists are shopping at Buc-ee’s, they’re not shopping in Mebane.”

Hopefully their efforts will prevail in the end as the above-quoted article from Fox 8 News dated January 2, 2025, seems to fret about the project being announced a year ago with little headway. It goes on to quote some alleged locals-

“Just ready for it to be here. There was a lot of opposition about it, but I visited one. We spent two hours at the one in Georgia,” said Joseph Holt, a resident.

One woman said she enjoys visiting Buc-ee’s in Florida, and she looks forward to having one around five miles away from her.

“It has everything … I like their snacks. I like their deli. I like their candies,” said Loretta Jeffries, a resident.

Does it really take so little for fellow citizens to erase the downtrodden from their minds in pursuit of…snacks and candles? How does one shop a convenience store for two hours? Another item of note is that it took Texas courts to rule that Buc-ee’s couldn’t force at-will employees to pay back bonuses without an unconscionable notice given, or even if they were fired:

If you quit or get fired in less than four years, or if you don’t give Buc-ee’s written notice at least 6 months before quitting, you have to pay back all of the retention payments you received, plus interest and attorneys’ fees.

In other words, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

That was the basic deal in Rieves v. Buc-ee’s, a case decided by the Houston Court of Appeals (14th District).[1] Rieves, the employee, received about $67,000 in retention payments, paying federal income taxes on them, but quit the job three years in. Buc-ee’s sued her to recover the $67,000 plus interest and attorneys’ fees.

The native elders are telling us the way if we only listen, but I don’t know that it will work out for these confused pale faces. If lengthy comments sections on Facebook are any indication, there’s not much more than grunts of agreement and anticipation over barbecued pain mounded on the whitest bread of mass-produced buns when Buc-ee’s is slated to come to town. This too is part of the degraded environment in whole, as we all are, and which we must recover from and defeat.

But the Buc-ee’s trance is strong, like with Target stores, and so many of these large retailers sucking up space and resources. I saw someone remark recently, semi-seriously at least, that Target locations seem to induce a psychosis in their “regulars”, and that maybe there is a substance spread beyond their brightly-colored, intense advertisements that pop up everywhere now virtually the minute you speak of their existence, like some demon force awaiting the next host. Indeed, I have been perplexed by this phenomenon of dedicated Target fans who will spend hours looking at, once again, candles and assorted cheaply-made goods as a hobby. It disturbs the soul as they mow down populations in the name of growth and “job creation”.

Sometimes language fails me in describing the overwhelming dread I feel when consciousness-destroying forces descend on us with cartoon mascots. To question this infantilism in common virtual forums draws out people who seem possessed by the ideation of Disney resorts and other soothing childlike avatars to sell them on destruction of humanity. You’re told you’re “weird” for seeing a serious analysis through, but resistance is never futile, and occurs around us daily if we look further than the foul sting of soul rot these headlines and proposals are meant to frighten us with to the point of total inaction.