Having been a licensed driver for 21 years now, there are certain elements associated with vehicular operation which I feel pretty confident completing. Parking, stopping, driving, all very uncomplicated tasks more or less. However, change one *tiny* thing like the location of the steering wheel and it all goes out the window. Yesterday was a unique experience for sure.
As I tooled around the mean streets of Barton, I noticed that my petrol (gasoline in North America) gauge was nearing the empty mark. Not bad considering that it was full when I bought the car like 2 weeks ago. So my first challenge was locating the petrol station. Good thing there was one near the Maccas where I picked up dinner so challenge one-check.
I pulled into the station, on the correct side, and checked the gauge for the little pump to tell me what side the tank was on. I parked and got out of the car and tried to pay at the pump. Only they dont do that here. At all. As a matter of fact, the pumps are pretty old school. They look like the pumps they had when I was a kid with the white numbers on black background. (For those of you from the cliff, like the pumps they had FOREVER at the Fina station at the corner of Cockrell Hill and Kiest---near the little grocery store for Gina).
So I was already a bit confused and went inside to pay for the gas in advance. Both clerks looked at me like I was mad because I had not pumped any gas yet. So I went back to my car and tried to pump the gas. I put the pump in the tank and could not get it to come on. There are no big rubber nozzle covers here. I pumped approximately $.12 worth of gas. Then it cut off. So I tried again and could not get the pump to start. I did this dance for about 2 minutes when the lady clerk actually came out to my car. Im sure she wanted to see what type of idiot I was that I couldnt pump gas. I told her that I just moved here and this was the first time I had to put gas in the car. She was very sympathetic and helpful. She wanted to know where I was from and I told her. Then I told her that back home we had to pay in advance for fuel. She told me that it was a pretty good idea and they didnt do that there and had many drive offs. As a matter of fact they had a drive off just before I got there. Once I figured out how to pump the gas at more than twelve cents at a time, I was off and running. Falling back into old habits, I started surveillaling the remainder of the parking lot and not paying attention to my fuel amount. I happened to look back over and the pump was still going strong at $60. Then it mercifully cut off. Its a Ford Focus, not an F-250 for crying out loud. I can only imagine what it takes to fill up a van or truck. UGH. There will be no joy riding for me. Good thing it takes me exactly 5 minutes to drive to work. WHEW!!!
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