By Jacob Hatcher

Community Columnist

I have found that there are two types of people: those that wish to squander a king’s ransom on gas station food that they could have gotten for a fraction of the price at a grocery store, and those that strive to do as the Bible says and be wise stewards of the resources God has given them. And those two people marry one another.

I’ll let you take a guess as to which one I am.

As much as I like to give my wife a hard time, there really is something special about that roadside stop in the middle of a long trip; the more remote the gas station the better.

Last weekend we ended up on backroads avoiding interstate traffic on our way back from the beach and stopped in at one of the few decent gas stations we were able to find. After filling the car up, I walked in to find my three children roaming the aisles of a literal candy store.

Eyes wide, smiles from ear to ear, the look on their faces was what I imagine the Israelites looked like when they finally crossed over into the Promised Land. They had survived on the manna from Daddy’s cooler and finally stumbled across the milk and honey they had been longing for.

By the time they were done collecting their bounty, our arms were overflowing with extreme levels of sodium, high fructose corn syrup and more sugar than a 1,000 acre cane plantation.

Even the clerk at the gas station was judging us a little bit.

Could we have gotten the same thing for cheaper somewhere else? Most certainly. Could we have gotten healthier choices? Most definitely. Would that have been as fun? Not a chance.

Yes, the bag of cheese puffs at Kroger is bigger and cheaper, but there’s a certain joy of a four year old stumbling across those cheese puffs on her own that can’t be replicated in the middle of gathering weekly groceries.

And the sound of, “Daddy, I want these!” is well worth the month’s salary those cheese puffs cost.