Fill 'Er Up, Then

So,

    I go to gas up on 19th and Santiago (which, at $2.99 is a steal compared to 29th and Taraval at a whopping $3.17 -don't they think we shop around ? )  I used to gas at the latter, as I could get Mentos for .79 - but Target (not Coscto, as you might assume) has the best Mentos price at .49.  Word.

   So I pull up behind some teeny tiny woman in a big-ass truck who seems to be buying gasoline for the first time.   How cute.  I can wait - I prefer to pull to the front pump and let someone pull behind me - it's more efficient - I don't cotton to gas pump leap-frog.

   Tiny Woman can't hardly reach the gas cap, and when she does, she does not seem to know what to make of it.  She swipes her card 12 times and looks confused.  She wrestles the nozzle (2 hands !) into the deal, and it slips out a couple of times.   Clank clank.  I give a hopefully-friendly shrug to the vehicle behind me "hey, do you see this, too ?"  She hits pay dirt, and fusses endlessly trying to "lock" the nozzle in place.  (Myself, I prefer to hold onto it manually and lean against the car casually like a teenaged boy filling up his Mustang with a packa smokes rolled up in his t-shirt sleeve.  Uber-causal.  I figure that gas pumping is a singular activity -  just do it.   You don't need to involve any other part of your life : pump the gas.  Don't catch up on correspondence or make sweet love to your Blackberry : pump the gas.  Plus, I like to play with the pump toward the end and see if I can get it to stop on a random number of my choice.

     I start to fiddle with my car - trying to figure out whether the peeling shit on the side is paint or fossilized rubber.  Suddenly, our Little Gas Gal pulls the nozzle out of her mega-truck -  still locked in place !  My hand to God - she wields that thing like an actual garden hose and she's spraying all of the neighborhood kids during a heat wave !  She fucking-well sprays the entire joint with GASOLINE.  It's like BP in the Gulf all over again.  This will go on for months - and I have a ringside seat !   I need to call Obama !

     I give her a look that I hope says a mix of "you've got to be kidding, look what you've done now, and I've never seen anything so pathetic in all of my 50 years on the planet".  She goes to  "explain" it to the Kiosk Worker - and I sidle through and say "$22 on #3, please."  I scurry (I am now pulled in front of the offshore-drilling site, and want to get out before the whole place blows) and (not for the first time, I've done this before, unlike some) prepare to pump my gas.  It gives me 25 cents worth, and shuts off.  I sputter, and assume that The Spill has shut down all pumping stations.  In the tri-state area.  I scurry (again) back to the Kiosk, where the Worker is overwhelmed and talking in 2 languages.  She surveys the spill ("..oooh, lady - that so much !") - runs to get buckets of absorbent pelleting, and orange cones.  Meanwhile, I stand at pump #3 while my $22 is registered in Pump #4.

    All I really wanted was a few gallons of goddamned gas.  I want service, dude. Harried Bilingual tells me "..I cannot - can you drive to #4 ?"  Yes, I can - but my gas cap is on the wrong side, so I it takes some maneuvering.  What's this ?  While I am turning the car all about, some old man just pulled into #4 where my money waits to be spun into gas ! 

    I approach his car - he looks wary.  I wave and try to look non-threatening - no dice.  I mime rolling down the window.  He has electric ones - so I mime pushing the window button.   After seeing that my threat level to him is a yellow, I explain the situation to, and he mumbles about "..the price of petrol", and backs up.

      I fill up, and go to get my change - and tell everyone in line what has occurred and that it is her first time ever pumping gas.  I allude to the place blowing shy high...  Then, the Kiosk Clerk (clearly "off book" on this one, and completely addled) asks ME (the obvious Fire Marshall in the group) : "Do you think if she starts up her car it will blow up because of all the gas ?"  I feel like the captain of a ship : all lives depend on me and my lightning-fast decision.  I say : "you're asking me ?  They call it an "ignition" for a reason : I suggest you ask a firefighter, not a customer."

          I just wanted a few gallons of the petrol.