At a gas station today, as I pumped ridiculously expensive unleaded fuel into my tank, the driver of the car next to me dropped the cap to his gas tank on the ground after he was done filling up. The cap rolled under the car, just out of his arm's reach. I heard him mutter something under his breath.

"I hate it when that happens," I thought, expecting him to curse and kneel down on the ground to pick it up. I even had a "that sucks, dude" look on my face in preparation.

Instead, the man acted as though it never happened. He didn't make any move to look for the cap. He didn't kneel down and check out where the cap landed. He didn't walk around the car to see if the cap rolled out the other side. He didn't so much as bend over. He didn't even get in his car, pull it up a few feet, get back out the car and grab the cap quickly as my lazy ass might have done. He simply dropped it, watched it fall, paused, closed the door to the tank, and drove away.

I don't understand, dude. I saw you drop the gas cap. I saw you see yourself drop the gas cap. I saw the moment of consideration where you decided what to do with the stray gas cap. Are those new jeans you're wearing too good to touch concrete? Is it too embarrassing to lean over and pick up something that you mistakenly dropped? Is it easier to drive to an Auto Zone and buy a new gas cap than to bend over and pick up the cap off the ground?

Hmmph. Some people.

Sadly, I am no stranger to embarrassing moments at the gas station. Back in '99 I worked for a local television news station in Lubbock as a production assistant for the morning news broadcast. I had to be at the station, awake and ready to go, at 5 a.m. That means I had to get in my car every day at 4:40 a.m. to get to work on time. (In my world, 4:40 a.m. only exists to remind you that it's time to turn the porch lights out, hide your friends' keys, and tuck them in on the couch before you pass out with your mouth open and drool on the pillow.) Miraculously, I worked at this job for almost six months without violently breaking my alarm clock.

One Monday morning en route to work, I realized that my gas tank was empty. (You should know that there are two things in the world I hate doing passionately that I have no choice but to do anyway. One of those things is stopping to get gas. The other thing is putting on socks and shoes. I don't hate socks and shoes themselves, I just hate having to stop and put them on. If flip flops and Velcro shoes were acceptable in every situation, you can bet I'd be wearing them 24/7.)

First of all, it was Monday. Second of all, it was 4:45 in the morning. Third of all, I was out of gas. All three of these things together equal disaster, right?

I pulled into the gas station. I put my debit card in the slotty thing. I started pumping the hated gasoline. I went inside to get coffee. I came back outside, got in my car, put it in gear, and pulled away.

Instantly, I heard a huge ruckus outside my car, like someone had just taking a giant trash can or something and thrown it at my car, or a piece of the sky had just fallen, maybe. The man at the counter was running out the door of the gas station towards me, screaming. I panicked, screamed, slammed the brakes, threw the car in park and jumped out the car to see what was happening.

Can you guess what the fatal flaw in that morning's routine was? Okay, I'll just tell you.

I forgot to take the gas pump out of my car before I drove away.

I damn near ripped the whole pump right off the machine, or the machine right out of the ground, even. There it lay, like a snake beaten to death by a garden hoe, the head of the gas pump almost (but not quite) dislocated from the long tube-y thing.

I could have died of embarrassment right there. If the Universe had hit the pause button and posed a multiple choice "Choose Your Own Adventure" right at that moment, I would have chosen "A) Die of Embarrasment" over "B) Live and Face the Gas Station Owner and Haunting Memories of This Moment Forever" without even thinking about it.

You know what I did instead?

I looked down at the gas pump hose, up at the gas station guy, and cried "I'm so sorry! So Sorry!" about fifty times whiles I jumped back in my car and drove away at 50 gazillion miles an hour. (Don't worry - I didn't break or injure anything that I should have payed for, I don't think. Unless you count my pride, of course.)

Come to think of it, I guess I left my gas cap in the parking lot that day.

Hmmph. Some people.

Lucy loves you |