No wonder businesses fail

At I-90 Exit 44, the last in Pennsylvania near western New York, are two businesses. A Kwikfil convenience store that sells gasoline, and a McDonald's hamburger stand.

Why are they still in business? It has to be the shear volume of passing traffic, but these two should take heed. Other businesses at this exit have folded. These two could be next.

My wife and I stopped there yesterday.

First off the Kwikfil gasoline service island is cramped and dangerous, and chockful of nitwit drivers crossing through to get to McDonald's. Kwikfil is "full service," but I had finished filling my tank before I even knew that. Wonderful service. The pumps are so old they don't take cards. When I went inside to pay, nobody acknowledged my existence other than to swipe my card. No greeting, no thanks, no nod that I even existed. Nothing but surly treatment.

Next door at McDonald's was worse. I didn't stay there long enough to even talk to a manager.

Eating at a McDonald's would have been my first McDonald's fare in several years. I got as far as the rest room, though. It was the second most disgusting restroom I have visited. (The first was at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Breezewood, PA.) I gagged just long enough to get out of the place and decided that there would be no way I would eat food from a kitchen of a place with a restroom that vile.

I made a fruitless attempt to talk to the manager. As is so often the case in McDonald's, everybody at the counter had their backs turned to the customers. I decided not to wait to complain.

There's an exit I won't stop at again.