Have you ever rested at a rest stop? I haven’t. I can’t imagine a worse place to rest than a rest stop. We all know what we do at a rest stop and it has nothing to do with resting. If you tried resting at a rest stop, they’d probably kick you out or arrest you for loitering.

I bring this up because Sue and I recently hit the interstate for eight hours to go to a wedding. Usually if a place is eight hours away or less, it makes sense to drive, rather than fly. Even if the flight itself only takes an hour, you have to drive to the airport a couple hours before the flight, park, take a shuttle to the terminal, check in, get through security and wait to board. After the flight, even if everything’s on time, it takes an hour to get your luggage and another hour to rent a car to get to your destination.

So we drive.

Oh, and did I mention we were driving all that way to go to a wedding? I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that we don’t go to many weddings anymore. Why? Because we’re old. And being old means that the lovely couple thinks we should sit next to the DJ’s speakers. Or inside them, if he’s really bad. It’s a rule: The louder the music, the worse the DJ and the older the guest, the closer to the speakers.

So we spend the entire wedding with people we can’t hear trying to talk to us. We nod and smile and have no idea what they are saying. They could be telling us that they are serial killers and enjoy keeping dismembered bodies in their freezer, and we would smile and nod and say, “That’s nice, good to see you again!”

So, looking forward to that conversation, we hit the road.

It’s 10 a.m. on a Saturday and it’s like rush hour on the freeway. Where is everyone going? Is there a big football game going on? No. Is it a holiday? No. Black Friday? No again.

Now it’s bumper-to-bumper. Suddenly it’s 75 mph. There’s nothing we can see that would make a difference. Wait, now it’s bumperto bumper again for 10 minutes, then it’s 75 again. No obvious reason. Cars are whizzing past us. Did the speed limit change?

All these cars flying past seem to be nicer than ours. Bigger. Faster. More armor. Now there are 18- wheelers in front of us, behind us and on both sides. My head comes up to their axles. The spinning nuts and bolts remind me of the chariot race in “Ben-Hur.” One little mistake and we’re toast.

Why, oh why, didn’t we take the plane? All of a sudden, turning into the next rest stop seems like a grand idea. Not because I’m scared to death, but because I need a cup of coffee. Just to calm my nerves.

“Get me one, too,” says Sue. How long would this take, I wonder? Two, three minutes?

An hour later, I get back to car with two cups of “fast” food coffee that cost me $11.73.

The place had been packed full of places to order food or drinks, but the lines were so long. Then I saw a place with a short line, and five people working the cash registers. So I ordered the coffee, and they give me a receipt: number 108. Then they call out number 54. They had five people behind the counter, but only one in the kitchen.

“If we drink this, we’ll just have to get off at the next rest stop,” says Sue.

“Not to worry,” I say. “It’s much too hot to drink. By the time we get to the next rest stop, we might be able to start sipping it, if we’re careful.”

“No more rest stops, then,” Sue says. “That’s OK. I feel very rested.”

— Jim Mullen takes a wry, witty look at the curiosities of American life in his weekly column. Almost everything is fair game – from the price of a cup of coffee, to shopping at big-box stores, to the perplexing lifestyles of the rich and famous. Contact Jim Mullen at JimMullenBooks.com.