PARADISE LOST: SHANGRI-LA AT A TWO-PUMP GAS STATION IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

I expected nothing. Forty miles from the nearest stoplight, at a two-pump station whose sign had lost its second vowel years ago, I braced for the worst and found a room so clean it made me question my own assumptions about the human race.

The floor was dry. The mirror had no fingerprints. The soap dispenser was full, and the soap smelled faintly of something a person might choose on purpose. A handwritten note taped by the sink read, in careful block capitals, that the restroom is cleaned every two hours and to tell the register if it isn't. I checked. A log on the back of the door had initials every two hours since 6 a.m.

This is the most radical document I have read all year. Somewhere out here, with no regional office, no brand standards manual and no consultant, a person decided that strangers deserve dignity, and then wrote it down and kept the promise. Every corporate chain in America with a nine-figure marketing budget should send its executives here on a bus.

To the owner: whatever you're paying the person with those initials, it isn't enough.

SCORE: 5 plungers. The cleaning log on the door.