Remember those days when you’d drive to the gas station and the attendant would fill ‘er up, check your oil and tire pressure, and clean your windows? Most of us reminisce about the good ol’ days when life wasn’t so hard, but grit our teeth and bear it as we fill up our gas tanks. This reminiscing is merely laziness. But for some of us, the lack of assistance at the gas tank may be life-threatening. Don’t believe me? Well, listen to my woeful story.
A couple of Fridays ago, I joined friends for a burger and a beer as usual at our favorite watering hole in Longmont, Old Chicago. On the way home, I decided to fill up my tank with gas. I never look forward to these moments alone with my car and its gaping gas tank greedily awaiting the gluttonous filling of its 14-gallon gas tank (I hear some SUVs have two of these babies!) and, admittedly, I was feeling a bit laid back after a filling lunch and a beer, ready for my afternoon nap. I went to a new station north of where I live and not very heavily trafficked. I hoped it would be quiet and I could come there regularly. I opened my gas tank door, took off the cap and set it on the hook inside of the door, then hit the Credit Card Outside option on the controls. So far, the interface was what I was used to. The message told me to “Remove nozzle and press start.” I removed the nozzle, then looked around for the start button. I found it, right next to the nozzles. I pressed it. The screen still said, “Please Press Start.” Hmmm. I looked again, then found another red button marked start above the row of nozzles. OK. That one must be it. I pressed it, put the nozzle in the opening of my gas tank and pressed the lever. Assuming all was well, I went about the business of cleaning my windshield. I grabbed the squeegee, pulled up the wiper blades, and scrubbed first the driver’s side, then the passengers side of the glass, turning the squeegee over to press all the water off and meticulously pulling straight lines across the glass.
When I was done, I walked back over to the controls. The screen said, Thank You! And I looked at the read-out:12 gallons. Because my tank was only half empty when I pulled up and held only 14 gallons total, I thought that was a little odd. But it was hot and I was in a hurry to get home and back to my current project (I was finally finishing my brother’s wedding video from four years back), so I pulled out the nozzle and put it back on its hook, screwed my gas cap back on, and flapped the gas tank door closed. I then got into my car and drove away.
It wasn’t until a couple of days later when I was driving a friend around who was visiting from another state that I looked down my gas gauge. “That’s weird.”
“What’s that?” my friend asked.
“I thought I filled up with gas on Friday, but my tank reads only a quarter full.” Was the gas station ripping off people by making them pay for gas they never received? Boy was I going to be pissed.
“Well, look at your receipt.” He leaned toward the steering wheel and pointed. “And Your Check Engine Light is on.” He was right. I had noticed it days before but had procrastinated calling the mechanic.
“Yeah, yeah. I know my check engine light is on.” I was feeling slightly incompetent by this time, and I didn’t need to be reminded of it.
A couple of days after that, it hit me. I had never received a receipt. (I know because I collect them and write my mileage on each one at the time I fill up the tank, then I set it on the top of a pile of like receipts in front of my computer waiting for the day that I will calculate my mileage and prove that I am saving gas by not letting the engine rev above 2rpms. My husband tells me that this behavior is a bit pathological, but I really will calculate the mileage for each receipt and then I’m going to input them into a spread sheet. Maybe I’ll even create a color pie chart…oh, sorry. Back to the story.) I had never received a receipt because I had never pumped any gas into my car. I was horrified. What would have happened if I hadn’t looked down at my fuel gauge until after the tank was empty and I got stranded on the Diagonal and had to walk home in the baking sun with no water? Shudder.
A week after that, I finally took my car to the mechanic. He discovered that my gas cap had worn and wasn’t closing properly, and that’s what made my check engine light turn on. I asked him if it was unusual for the gas cap to wear that way, and he said no. But I suspect it could be related to screwing the cap back on with an almost empty tank on a hot day and stripping the cap threads. But ignorance is bliss!
Moral of the story is, some of us just need a little extra help once in a while. No big deal in an enlightened society. Didn’t someone say you can measure the greatness of a society by how they treat the klutz? Those fancy gas stations really do meet the needs of this large segment of the population. Notice that I said “needs,” not “desires.” Other people go to full service gas stations like they were going to a spa for an orange mango toe rub. People like me seek them out furtively from the shadows, desperate to fill a small tank of gas without spilling gasoline on our clothes, or leaving streaks of dirt on our wind shields. And god-forbid we turn on our cell phones and start chatting as we fill the tank. In fact, basic assistance is such a requirement for us folks that insurance companies should cover each visit to the tank. What a cost savings it will be for the insurance companies when we go to all-electric vehicles! But then there would be electricity and outlets involved. Eek.
Email has become a social piranha. It disrupts the social flow. Chain emails, Spam, Viruses, email programs that rudely delete important emails before you can read them. But email will always have a very warm place in my heart. It was email that brought my husband and me together. Before Gore invented the internet, before SPAM, before instant messaging, before internet gaming, and e-dating, my husband and I developed our budding relationship by emailing epistles back and forth. If it hadn't been for email, our relationship would not have unfolded, the delicate flower that it was.
In 1988, we both worked at a large computer engineering firm. It was our first job out of school. He was a software engineer and I was a technical writer. We never worked together, but high-tech friends introduced us at a party. It was a traditional courtship in many ways. We met first for an impressive lunch at a sub shop. Then we kept running into each other at parties and the attraction was obviously there. And then there was the spectacular New Year's Eve when, on the dance floor, at midnight, I kissed him. Things started to fizzle after that. I figured I had scared him off. After all, he was an ultra geek and had bad luck with women in the past, or so a friend of a friend said. We did see each other at parties and in groups, but never alone, which can't be described as a dating situation. We did get many chances to talk, though not about personal stuff. I remember he did talk me into setting up email on my UNIX workstation. I knew the company had an intranet, but I didn't understand its potential for personal communication. I had no concept of e-poetry just as no one else did. Remember this was before anyone (was it Gore?) had invented the "e-"; as a prefix to anything done electronically.
One day, after a weekend water volleyball party, he called me. "I just sent you an email message." I had forgotten about my email account. I logged in and there it was. Because this was before Gore invented the internet, the email came through a UNIX server networked environment. Don't worry about what that means, just know that UNIX is to Windows like the cockpit of a Leer jet is to your television remote, and the computers we used were more like a HUM-V than the subcompact car-like internet device you might be using to read this blog right now. A lot more power than most of us need. I read these emails on a black screen, the ghostly white letters glowing at me in a glorious monospaced font. There were no BlackAdder or New York Times fonts to choose from. Yet the words sprang from this dull screen with the romantic vibrance of a dozen roses. I fell in love heavily and hard and we have been together ever since. So, thanks to all those university types, NASA, Al Gore, & whoever else contributed to this first network of computers. They made us who we are today.