HOW is it possible that the same race of beings that came up with the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s David, the Parthenon, Louboutin Pigalle stilettos, Beethoven’s Pastoral, the Velvet Underground’s Satellite of Love and the Chanel 2.55 handbag also invented the motorway service station?
I was in one on Sunday morning, contemplating whether to buy a tin of M&S Motoring Sweets, just for nostalgia’s sake, and this question hit me out of the blue.
They’re pretty awful places, with their glaring fluorescent lights and cleaning fluid perfume, but I’d never before given them much thought.
Possibly the monotony of the service station routine – head for the Ladies, go to the cash machine, buy some fast food, optional mooch in the magazine section of the newsagents, and back to the car – had prevented any deeper reflection.
Now, I know that they’re designed for practicality over aesthetics but, as humankind is always judged by later generations for the things they produce (art, literature, architecture, useful objects, etc), they are possibly the most depressing places on Earth.
We move about them like zombies, weary from the journey that got us there, often thankful not just for the break from staring at the motorway ahead, but from our companions on the road.
Inside, we are anonymous, our personalities stunted under an onslaught of everything average – no longer defined by how we chose to spend our lives, but on whether we want fries with that.
Everyone is equal – forced to use the same inadequate hand driers and pay £1.50 for the privilege of accessing your own bank account, no matter what your social status.
Motorway service stations are a great leveller, but the level we all reach is rock bottom. OK, it doesn’t really matter if half an hour or so of every lengthy journey is spent in a place that is so disconcertingly similar to the next that you suffer from deja vu for the duration of your stay.
In fact, optimists would say that it helps you appreciate pleasanter surroundings.
But the reason it so depresses me is that service stations have such potential.
Often you stop at one because you are going somewhere exciting, lit up inside with the anticipation of two weeks in the sun, or meeting up with old friends at a family wedding.
Or you are on your way home, brain and digital camera stocked up with (hopefully) happy memories. And the people you stand behind in the queue at Burger King all have their stories, too – reasons for being on the road that are far more interesting than their choice of soft drink.
OK, I’m whingeing, but, as scientists from Houston University have recently discovered, dissatisfaction leads to creativity, so this can only be a good thing.
Workers who are prepared to grumble about their miserable lot are those most able to come up with bright ideas, the study found.
Natural-born whiners spend a large part of their day considering how things could be better and companies should be harnessing the complaining power of these “If Onlys” before they quit their jobs and take their creativity elsewhere.
Relating this information to service stations, there are two things we can take from it.
Either the people who design our roadside rest-places are very, very content indeed, or service stations were created as a ploy to instil a bit of misery into holidaymakers’ lives and increase the collective creativity of the nation.
READ more of Laura’s columns at www.liverpooldailypost.co.uk/lauradavis
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