Empty

There are two kinds of people in the world: people who fill their cars up as soon as the gauge hits the halfway mark and those who wait until the car is actually approaching empty before filling up. T and I are a mixed marriage. My husband, an always-be-prepared boyscout of a man, is the former. I like to live on the wild side. I fill up with a quarter of a tank left. Cheap thrills.

I noticed on the way home from dance lessons that I was running low on gas, but with two crabby children and Sonic hamburgers in the car, I talked myself into waiting until the next morning. Apparently I never even glanced at the gauge on Thursday's library run because it never crossed my mind to fill up.

This brings us to Friday. So. Very. Tired. The hubs tells me I was a snore beast all night. I know that this must be true because he kicked me in the rear hard enough to leave a footprint! That was around 5:00 a.m. I never made it back to sleep. Having gone to bed around midnight (I know! Show some self control! Get off the internet!), that made for about 5 hours of sleep. I can barely function on less than seven. Yikes!

I think it is possible that I sleep-drove Z to school on Friday morning. I was about 3/4 of the way home when the OMG-you're-about-to-be-stranded-on-the-side-of-the-road light came on. That woke me up. I toggled the display over to 'miles to empty.' Three miles. No problem, I think to myself. I will just gas up on the way to pick up Z. T never has to know!

Thinking I'll run an errand or two before getting Z, Q and I head out around 11:15. When I start the car, the display says two miles to empty. Holy sheep! That will be cutting it close. I watch the gauges like a hawk all the way to the gas station. As I coast up to the pump, it clicks over to zero miles to empty. Whew! I made it!

I open the console to grab my wallet. What, huh? Oh, hell no. Where's my wallet? Sitting in the library bag in the middle of Z's floor. No cash. No cards. No options. I had to call T. At work. Oh noes!

Me - "T? Get the mocking over with quickly, then come rescue me."

T - "Oh, hell. What's wrong?"

Me - "I'm out of gas and I don't have my wallet."

T - "Bah, ha, ha, ha, ha! I'll get there as soon as I can."

So there I am: stranded at the low rent gas station with no way to leave. Then a police car pulls up. T gets out of his squad car and hands me his debit card. I run into the station to give them the card. I tell the gal that it is for the gray car, only to notice that the other car out there is gray, too. So then I tell her, "Um, the one with the police car by it." Dying. Inside.

Fourteen years later (seriously, it took like 20 minutes to fill up!), T leaves and I go in to sign the receipt. The clerk is kind of giving me the hairy eyeball (or it felt like it, any way), so to cover up the awkward, I said, "Wow! That is the slowest pump ever!" She replied that it gave me time to cool off and "deal with things."

She thought the police car was there for me because I was in trouble! She thought I was a criminal!

"He's my HUSBAND!" I blurt out defensively. I will never live this down.