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Standing in the men’s room of a petrol stop just off Interstate 15, half an hour north of Las Vegas, a man in cowboy boots stomped to the urinal immediately to my right.
Unremarkable, but annoying as there were dozens of alternative spots in the otherwise empty room that he could have chosen to maintain our distance.
And he wasn’t wearing a mask.
When I went to wash my hands – taking the prescribed 20 seconds to be thorough – he made sure to stand at the basin to my immediate left, an unmistakable sneer on his moustached face.
It happened during a 5954-kilometre road trip this month from Washington DC to LAX ahead of a Christmas visit to Australia, and it was deliberate.