Karl reminded me on Thursday night that I needed to get gas in my car. The fuel message read 45 miles to E. Not to worry, I could get to my office and back on 25 miles to E.
My day began with a meeting at Lincoln Elementary School. As usual, I took the "back way" route to Lincoln through a joint parking lot shared by the Jones Center. Today, however the shared access gate connecting the two parking lots was chained and locked. Not a problem, I decided to park at the Jones Center and just walk through the locked gate through the parking lot to one of the back doors into the school. I was a little bummed that all of the back doors on the parking lot side of the school were locked (student non attendance day). So, I walked to the front of the school, entered the one and only open door and proceeded down the long hallway nearly all the way to the back parking, 10-15 minutes late for the meeting. There wasn't a chair for me ( the late comer) in the back of the room, so there was a big commotion and disruption in the meeting just to get me a chair. Arrggg!!!!!!
Following the meeting at Lincoln Elementary, I headed to the district office for another meeting. I stopped at McDonald's for a Diet Coke on the way. The time in my office was busy but pretty uneventful.
Around 4:15, I talked to Karl and told him I was just about ready to head for home. I pulled out of the parking lot around 4:25 and headed north on Main Street toward 2100 South. As I approached the intersection of 2100 S Main Street, my car sputtered a little bit. I didn't think much about it until the engine died. I attempted to restart the car when it hit me -- out of gas. Rats! Why didn't I remember to stop and get gas at some point during the day!
Seeing a gas station just through the intersection (a few 100 feet), I so hoped that with any luck my car would make it there on fumes. Sadly, no such luck :(
Embarrassed??? Absolutely!!! Humiliated???? Yes!!!! Call for help??? Absolutely not!!!
So, I turned the emergency flashers on, got out of my nice little Flex car and walked to the Shell Gas Station/Supersonic Car Wash on the NW corner of the intersection. Once there, I approached a few workers asking if they had a gas can I could use because I had run out of gas in the intersection (I pointed to my car sitting patiently in the left turn lane with the flashers blinking). They looked at me confused and got someone to help me who could speak English. The English speaking worker chuckled as he fumbled through a few things in the back of the car wash building and came to my rescue with a gas can. One of the Spanish speaking workers offered to help me. I gladly accepted his offer even though I couldn't understand him nor him me. I filled the can with gas and the worker and I walked to my car. We couldn't get the gas into the tank. Apparently there is a latch inside the gas tank area that can only be released by a gas pump nozzle. Hmmmm . . . what do we do now? I walked to the Jiffy Lube on the SW corner of 2100 S Main Street. There were three workers there trying to keep their composure knowing full well my situation. One Jiffy Lube worker decided to help. I made him promise not to tell anyone, especially my husband. He got a screw driver (you can fix anything with a screw driver) and after a few attempts at trying to break the fuel pipe thing, he and the car wash worker were able to release the latch inside the fuel area and pour the gas into the tank. I told them not to share my story with anyone! I was embarrassed and didn't want anyone to relish in my stupidity. I drove to the Shell station where I felt obligated to pay the $3.42 price tag for gas (the most expensive gas around).
I eventually made it home - 30-40 minutes later than expected. Karl didn't say anything about my later than expected arrival. Whew! By this time, he was hungry so we decided to go to Red Robbin for a hamburger. (We drove separately because I planned to visit Dad and he wanted to get back home to watch basketball games. Had we driven together, he would have asked me about getting gas. Dodged an awkward conversation!) We were seated at Red Robbin and had our Diet Cokes when the restaurant manager approached us and wanted to ID us for drinks? What??? First of all, I think we look old enough to buy drinks that require an ID and second, we had our Diet Cokes in full view. Go figure - he had the wrong table. Embarrassing for us and him!
Needless to say, the day came to an end without any additional awkward and unfortunate events. I haven't told anyone about my not so good Friday; I do however, want it recorded for posterity that every once in awhile I fall flat into a series of weird, embarrassing situations or events. If you are reading this blog post, laugh a little and know that stupid is as stupid does. I just hope the next time my day isn't going very well, I check the fuel tank message before there are no fumes left in the car.
The end!
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