This picture is absolutely hideous but I deserve it!
I haven't been driving nearly as long as I should have been. When I was 21 I sat in a drivers Ed class for the first time with baby girl grown to a good 7 months gestation and here I was needing my licence lest I should have to drive myself to the hospital.
I stuck out like a sore thumb amidst all the other acne-faced-dyed-haired sixteen year olds counting down the days to their sixteenth birthday to say the least, and even after I received that hallowed certificate, I keep on proving that I still have a lot to learn.
particularly at the gas pump.
Yesterday I had to drive myself and my sister to the city and realized my gas tank was empty before we left.
"Oh maaan" I complained, " I HATE gassing up."
But sometimes a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. Even an inept one like myself.
Now you may think I'm being rather harsh with myself, so I'll give you the back story in as little elaboration as possible.
Two months after getting my licence and my car, I found myself in the city with my mother in law having to gas up for the first time.
She gave me some pointers to try to ease the terrified look in my eyes and one piece of her advice was get the last little bit of gas from the line when you are done filling. just squeeze the pump a little and jiggle it to get those last few drops of goodness.
So, I did just that... without the nozzle in my tank... and ended up spraying the side of the car and myself in gas....oh yes I did.
We had to go and buy new clothes on the spot....it was terrible and I was scarred for life.
But determined to try again.
Fast forward to last summer, my sister and I had to stop at an old little gas station for a fill before we could head home. Confident that I wouldn't be showering myself in gasoline again, (you really only do that once) I hopped out of the car to get started and the pump looked like nothing I had seen before.
great.
I'm like a rat in a maze with this stuff at the best of times, and suddenly the maze has been changed... I can't find the cheese so to speak.
Into the station I go,
"Um...I don't think I quite know how to use your pumps out front?" I say timidly to the irritated lady behind the counter. (she strikes me as someone who REALLY doesn't like their job).
"What's the problem?" she growls before coughing an entire lung into her fist.
"well, the pump... how do you make the gas come out?"
She looks at me for a very long minute and then starts flipping through her magazine again Without looking up, she dismisses me wtih, " You lift the nozzle and the gas comes out".
She might as well have added, "Now Scram!"
I scrammed back to the pump and my sister who'd been trying to figure it all out in my absence.
I fill her in on what I've been educated with and we put the nozzle into the gas tank and try pressing, squeezing and jiggling every single part of that blinking nozzle but no gas comes out. We started pushing every button on the pump but absolutely nothing happened.
Finally in defeat we look at each other.
One of us has to go back to visit the Wizard of Oz, and we are pretty convinced any help or advice might truly cost us the hefty price of a dead witches broom this time.
Like the cowardly lion I head back into the station and the trip to that counter feels every bit as long as the journey towards the smoking pillars in the Emerald hall.
I approach the counter and realize all this time she has been watching us on the surveillance cameras.
"Um, excuse me," I clear my throat and decide to go for the congenial approach, "I know this is ridiculous,"I put on my most winning smile,
"But this just really isn't my day... Wouldn't you know, I still just can't figure out that silly pump" I chuckle and shake my head like a character on the Waltons.
She obviously never watched the Waltons.
Very slowly she puts down her magazine and smoothes it out painstakingly with her fully-ringed fingers. She speaks very slowly and deliberately to the grinning idiot in front of her.
I think I actually winced.
"On...the...bottom...of...the....NOZZLE ....there...is...a...lift....you...must....pull....that...up...."
(now scram!)
Tears of frustration spring to my eyes, but I won't give her the satisfaction of making me cry, so I head back out and we stand there, and just look at that god-forsaken nozzle.
I feel like talking to it square in whatever would be considered it's eyes.
"Okay listen Nozzle... you don't like me, and I REALLY don't like you, but I need some gas and you're going to give it to me and you're not going to give me any trouble about it, right? RIGHT!"
Instead I square my shoulders and decide that if this doesn't work, we'll walk home and Kevin can come back for the van tomorrow.
Except then, my sister has a breakthrough. Sure enough UNDER the nozzle on THE PUMP there is a LEVER that when flipped like a switch starts the gas.
After filling my tank with what I prepaid for with 10.00 of gas, I expected the pump to stop automatically like most pumps do. But I think we've already established this pump is not like most... I overfilled and underpaid by a quarter but left that place in my dust with very little guilt.
So yesterday when I pulled up to the gas bar we were reliving these stories and pep-talking me with "what could possibly go wrong now?".
I hopped out of the car with my debit card and looked at the display for "pay at the pump". ( I have since learned to stay out of the actual station if at all possible). I saw a little LCD display that said insert card and so I inserted it.... into the receipt printer. I kid you not.
I poked my head into the car...."oh... I've really done it now Bre, I stuck my card into the receipt slot".
Again there we were, two sisters caught in a conundrum at the gas bar. My sister tried desperately to retrieve the card but all she said was, "Oh... I think I just stuck it up there farther"
How many Esau girls does it take to fill a gas tank?... One to try to grip the card out of the slot and one to go for help apparently.
BACK into the gas station I went and asked timidly for help retrieving my card. Luckily, I got help from a kind Samaritan of an attendant who chuckled and said in grandfatherly way, "Aw, hun, if you were the first to do this, I'd have a laugh... but believe it or not, you aren't."
What? There are others out there like me? Perhaps we should get together and start a support group
He unlocked the face of the pump to retrieve my card and after a moment of silent struggle to unjam the card, He commented quietly, "wow, you really stuck it in there didn't you?"
Oh Heaven help me never have to gas up a vehicle again... Oh humanity, invent me a vehicle that fills itself
Is this really too much to ask?
Happy first of April and Happy Weekending to you all!
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