Almost every evening, with my roommate’s dog in tow, I walk around my inner-city neighborhood for a while, usually ending up at the S&S Grocery on N.W. 16th and Youngs. One of the highlights of my day is saying hello to the guy working the night-shift, a personable young man from the Ivory Coast. I pay a buck or two for my Sugar-Free Red Bull and head home in the dying light of the Sun.
In Oklahoma City, many people like to waste their time arguing about which convenience store is better: OnCue or QuikTrip; I don’t have either in my area—and probably never will—so why bother? Instead, deep among the boarded-up houses and abandoned duplexes in my neighborhood, we’ve got Oklahoma’s own version of an East Coast bodega.