Pumping Gas Gets Real

Andrew has an aversion to pumping gas.  At various intervals, I find myself generously given the suggestion to be the one to drive his car and spend some time alone in an evening.  This is a luxury for me as a homeschooling parent who otherwise gets very little time without other people.  Each time I eagerly accept and typically spend an absurd amount of time wandering through book stores or Target or chatting on the phone to friends across the country.  And then I check the gas tank in the car, and it's miraculously on E just about every time.

Lately, I'd been switching it up so that Andrew got a taste of his own medicine.  He'd had to fill my van's tank the last couple of times as well as his own.  So he declared that he would take our son home from the restaurant, where we had met for dinner, in his car (with a half full tank) while I got gas in the van.  Fine.  The game was up, and by rights it was my turn.

I drove a block up the road, and my favorite gas pump was blocked by a large SUV, so I went around to the other side of the station and parked.  I did the awkward juggle between getting the car ready, answering the endless question prompts interrogating me about all of my life preferences and seemingly judging me for not wanting a car wash.  "I'll do it later!  Eventually!"

Finally, success!  The gas is pumping, and I'm trying to look casual and unconcerned as a trio of 20-something men sit a few yards away in a running car, waiting for their 4th to finish making a purchase inside.  With nothing much else to do, we are trying not to stare at one another and cause unnecessary social interaction, despite that I'm facing toward them.

Suddenly, I felt a tickle on my chest.  I noticed that my hair was pulled back, and my necklace was stationary.  My overshirt didn't have a collar in that area.  I glanced down during my super-casual gas pumping activity and noticed something decidedly foreign.  So, naturally, I calmly flipped the hell out and knocked at this freakish attachment to me, hoping with intensity that it wouldn't fall down and get wedged in my cleavage.  The world has some small mercies within it, and my foreign invader fell to the ground while I double checked to ensure that I hadn't just generated some life-threatening sparks.

About this time, I became aware of some nervous laughter directed my way from the waiting car.

"You okay?"

I checked myself. "Yeah."  Looking at the ground, I oh-so-coolly tried to gesture with my free hand at the ENORMOUS COCKROACH that I had just knocked off of myself.

"You spill gas?"

"No, I just had this bastard of a beastie land on me.  Can you see how huge it is?"

Laughter from them, though I could tell they were trying to be polite and working at stifling it.  The kind of laughter that says, "I'm not laughing at you; I'm laughing with you, even though you aren't laughing at all yourself."

Apparently I was show worthy at this point, and at least one of them kept a weather eye on me from then on, just in case anything else exciting happened.  For my part, I was eagle-eyeing the vile creature who had encroached upon my personal space.  NOT COOL.

Soon afterward, their 4th member came out of the store and seemed to be saying hello to me.  I did not know him, but I gave a sort of half-laugh, half-response that indicated that I was paying attention if he was talking to me.  Meanwhile, he was giggling fiercely.  At my expense?  I could not tell.  But it felt like it.

Ceasing my pumping duties, I got back in the van and twitched out for a while until calling my sister.  She was appropriately commiserative and soothed me into relative calm with her sympathy.

Arriving home a few minutes later, I recounted the story to Andrew.  His response?

"That's why I don't like to be the one to get the gas."