A Gas Station Story

I can't believe I forgot about this little "incident".

Probably because it was a wee bit embarrassing on my part or something.

Back in June before I went up to Idaho to have B,

when I was living large and able to go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted and was a shopping fool,

I had a bit of a "user error" problem.

On one of my shopping escapades,

I noticed the tank level on my car was just above the "E".

Dangit.

For some weird reason I don't like to gas up our vehicles.

I don't know why.

It might have something to do with a fear of pulling up to the pump on the wrong side{each of our cars has been different and I always forget} and having to repark,

or having a scary bearded serial killer be right across from me filling up his car,

or having someone in line behind me-and me not being able to go fast enough{like i can control the flow of fuel},

or doing something stupid for that person just waiting and watching to see....

WHATEVER the reason,

It's just not my favorite thing to do...yeah, I realize I sound like a paranoid weeny.

So with that in mind:

on with my story.

I saw that my car was almost empty and knew that I needed to gas up on my way out.

Luckily there is a gas station right down the road from us,

and it happened to be the way I needed to go.

When I pulled up I noticed it was kinda busy-which I hate {because of all the above reasons},

but I pulled in anyways-with the tank on the right side,

and slid my card to start the process.

I selected my gas,

and the screen read:

Lift lever and begin fueling

So I grabbed the handle-thingy and stuck it in the tank.

And waited.

I checked to see if I had pulled the handle trigger - I had.

But still no gas flow.

Dang.

This is not hard Audrey, just start over and it'll work.

So I did...and it didn't.

Ah man.

So I walked my very preggo self into the store.

"I'm on pump 3 and for some reason I don't think it's taking my card, can I just pay in here?"

"Yea."

He swipes my card and I prepay-and make sure I hadn't been charged twice.

"Have you guys had trouble with this pump today at all?" {i was just covering my bases}

"No."

On my way out he calls:

"Just make sure to lift the lever!"

Okay,

I've been to a gas station before,

and I think I understand how it works...I am not that dumb, dude.

I go back out and lift the dumb handle up and out of it's holder, thinking:

Duh, how else would I be able to get gas if I didn't LIFT it out.

I stick it in the tank once again and once again...noth.

So I march myself back inside trying to stay calm.

I've just wasted like 15 minutes trying to get gas.

It's 95 degrees and in preggo terms that means it's 115 degrees.

"Hey, I don't want to bug ya, but could someone come out to see if its working right? I just can't get it to start."

One of the cashiers follows me out,

lifts the handle out...and then LIFTS UP the lever beneath that,

and my car starts filling up.

HUH?!

There's a random lever underneath?

Where the heck did that come from!

I've never seen a stupid thing like that before!

I didn't say those things out loud.

What I did say was:

"Oh....thanks...I didn't know...I had to do that..."

....heheh....

The cashier looked at me like I was retarded and went back inside.

And then I went on my merry way.

When Kevin got home from work I told him the story,

and he just laughed.

He told me there's lots of gas stations like that....that I have never been to obviously.

{random pic from google}

Moral of the story:

Make sure you gas up at lots of different gas stations so you don't end up surprised like me.