Knee deep in vitamin D is a bit of an overstatement. Ankle deep is more accurate. Wayne Gibbous was knee deep only at first, when he was on his knees. Not praying, mind you. Rather, he was down on all fours looking for the quarter that just fell from his hand. As the reader longs for specifics, a more detailed account follows, to include gently blossoming character development and slow, steady swells of rising action.
The rest area is mostly empty. A handful of eighteen wheelers are idling in the dark as their drivers lay idle, sleeping for a few hours before continuing on to wherever it is that trucks go. Everywhere I suppose. It is a bitterly cold night. This stretch of the West Virginia Turnpike goes through some pretty remote mountains. The frigid air and biting wind makes the place seem all the more desolate. The humming tractor-trailers help, but it remains a lonely place. During the day there is free coffee available, which would certainly feel great right now, but it's well past midnight and the only options are cold drinks and stale snacks. Wayne Gibbous would be deeply disappointed in his late night snacking options if he ever got to the vending machines.
He pulls his 85 Honda Prelude into a space right by the bathrooms to avoid a long walk through the cold. Reaching into his pockets to determine his food budget he remembers he has to keep another buck and a quarter for the last toll booth. Placing that money aside he counts up the rest of his change. He's got a couple dollars. He's also got some lint and few sticks of doublemint gum (unnecessary details, but details nonetheless). If he's lucky, he can get a drink and a bag of pretzels, or maybe cheetos. That will be enough to get him through to morning. By then he'll be near Knoxville and can grab some breakfast.
Ready to brave the cold, he opens his door and stands up. Shutting the door behind him he drops one of his quarters. Wayne would normally not go looking for a dropped coin, but this quarter is the difference between a full drink/snack combo or an either or. This one is vital. It's a nicely lit rest stop, but not lit well enough to find a coin from 6 feet away. High above, a sliver of moon offers no help whatsoever.
He crouches down on the cold pavement and quickly spots it. It's tucked behind the tire. He gets on his knees to balance himself and reaches. Just a little out of his reach, he repositions himself, then back to his knees. A big tanker truck slowly pulls behind his car - not in the designated truck parking and not even in a space. It stops directly behind him him. The driver gets out.
"Do you mind? It's kind of an emergency."
"What?"
"I've got to park here for a minute, maybe two. My truck's acting up and I need to take a leak."
"No problem."
He can maneuver his Prelude out of the spot even with the truck blocking him. Plus, Wayne is focused on his quarter. He still can't reach it, it's as if it moves farther out of reach each time he lunges at it. Just a little further.
"Thanks."
The trucker runs into the bathroom and out of sight. Out of mind. Out of body, in fact. But Wayne is focused on his quarter. He hears a drip, then a piddle, then a giggle (a giggle?) then a tidal wave smacks the pavement behind him.
"Jesus!"
The tanker is spilling its contents of 2% pasteurized, homogenized, vitamin D fortified milk all over the parking lot, and Wayne is covered in it. A bath of cold milk on a cold night in the middle of cold mountains with no change of clothes (cold or warm). Fantastic. And let's not forget, a quarter buried beneath hundreds of gallons of cow juice.
A long night just got a lot longer, a bad day just got started and a quarter that jumped ship moments ago set up the whole chain of events. It was years in the making and required too many conspirators to count. Make no mistake, two bits just stuck it to Wayne Gibbous, and Gibbous knew it. He also had a feeling there was more to come. More change that he couldn't handle.
G'night.
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