rant and rave

how stupid can we be??? for anyone out there who has ever run out of gas, this is for you.

a) i have never in my life run out of gas. i'm a planner, a planner that has been driving for more than 12 years. so i am well aware of the fact that gas does not spontaneously occur in the gas tank (no matter what georgeW says). and normally in life, i don't let my primary vehicle get lower than 1/4 tank, in the nasty winters, i keep it at 1/2 tank for sure. i know some people who think it's "fun" to try to see how many more miles they can make it after the light comes on....this is most certainly not me.

b) leeser has run out of gas before, i don't know how many times, but i know at least once for certain. she is not a planner. but she has been driving longer than i and she is also well aware of where gas comes from. she lets the tank get down to nill pretty often, waits till the last second, then fills up again. usually this doesn't backfire on her, but as i mentioned she HAS run out of gas.

so after a really great tournament at butterfest in sparta, wi. we decided to head home after the last game to have a nice sunday at home. the weather had dampened the bonfire plans.....so off we went. it was almost 11pm. so we are driving along, navigated some pretty heavy rains, made it through lacrosse, and split off to follow i90 all the way home to rochester. if any of you have driven this route you know that after you pass the exit for winona, it's pretty much you, the road, cow poop and grass for miles around.

as you might have already suspected we are chatting away, and i notice the orange gas pump lights up on the dash board (thank the lord for these little inventions), 'oh shit, we need gas.......' i spurted out. then i proceeded to get really pissed off at the situation and began thinking out loud where in the hell we were going to find gas in that area at that time of night...... it's now after 11:30pm. and let me tell you, there ain't no 24 hour kwik trips or super americas out here in cow country.

by this time, i'm pissed off and pretty tired from being outside playing ball all day, getting soaked in a downpour and sweating my ass off since about 9:30am that morning. so i take the first exit i see for ridgeway. there is a little tiny sign without any pictures, colors or fanfare, it just says 'gas' and has an arrow pointing. so i head that direction, eventually a few miles up the road we see some houses, all dark and nothing that resembles a business. then we spot some lights at what could be a gas station, upon closer inspection we see it's the town bar. of course it's a house converted into a saloon, neon lights everywhere, the same rickety screen door that was probably on the house when it was built. it even still has a yard and garage, the only reason we know it's the bar is the signs and there's lights on inside and a few cars parked outside in a town that has otherwise passed it's bedtime.

i stop out front and leeser decides to go in because someone must have a can with gas in their pickup. this was a reasonable thought, probably true, and really our only safe option. out she comes in a few seconds, 'follow this guy up the road or something, i guess he owns the gas station,'. so some old guy with a long grey ponytail which he has bound up at his head and down in the middle again and once more at the end, creating a faux braid stumbles out of the bar. i thought he must be hammered, but it turns out he had a bum leg. he walks next door and flicks on the lights inside a little building we didn't even notice. outside we see two little old school pumps, as we pull up he flicks one on and it sounds like someone is doing a load of laundry. there weren't even digital numbers on these babies, just the numbers that roll around and around... like micheal j. fox's alarm clock in back to the future.....remember those things??? anyway, he hooked us up with $20 and we were on our way. we didn't forget to give the feller a nice $5 tip too, he was excited, i bet that would buy him 5 beers and 5 shots back at the bar.

so, although this story is somewhat amusing, it still doesn't dispell the fact that lisa and i are complete morons. check the gas gauge when you get in the car, people.

word to your mutha!