runnin on empty

RUNNIN ON EMPTY

if youve ever ridden in a car with my wife she then you
will frequently see this on the dashboard of the car she is driving

the problem is that we live miles and miles from the nearest
gas station

there is nothing worse than being in a hurry and rushing to
an important appointment
starting the car driving out the long driveway
running late and look down at the gauge and it looks like
this

when my cars low fuel light comes on i have 40 miles of gas left

in my car that rarely happens unless my wife she says
honey in ill take your car i dont want to stop for gas
im late for school

(shes a school teacher and drives 40 miles one way to work
-she knows my car will get her there even if its on empty-
and the nearest gas station on her route is 13 miles away
13 thats an unlucky distance isnt it)

then later i get in her car it looks like that there are
3 choices

dont go

hunt for gas around the property like drain my riding lawnmowers
gas tank or siphon gas out of my old truck
if im lucky my 2 portable gas tanks have gas in them but usually
she has used them up and they are empty

(sometimes ive been known to hide one of those tanks
ive ran out of gas in that lawnmower more than once
usually in the middle of my pastures when im hauling limbs
and trash and it just has to sit there until i get gas
13 miles away)

or

drive my old beat up dirty black farm truck

i harass her all the time about being on empty
i know that if i ever run out of gas then she will never ever
ever let me live it down

ive only ran out of gas once
knock on wood
(except of course for my lawnmower)
that was 45 years ago
i was in our family car at 5am about to go on our senior trip
and drove the 6 miles from our house
to the school on empty
i ran out about a mile away from the school but lucky it was
on a gradual down hill slope and i coasted into a parking spot
bet my dad was pissed when he came to pick it up
however with 5 boys that probably wasnt the first time that
happened

near us halfway between two towns is a gas station that must
like its gas a lot as it always charges 20+ cents a gallon more
than everyone else or else the owner must be from california

im always telling my wife she
why would anyone stop there and pay those prices

(my old truck in its better days)

yesterday i hauled a load of rock dirt and tools to a habitat
job site to do some landscaping
i felt like i had plenty of gas but i guess the load sucked a lot
out of the tanks

as i was driving home on the highway i looked down
i was past empty ie not just empty
but where it looks like the gauge in there broke and fell down

i was a few miles from THAT expensive station
the other nearest stations were 8 miles each way
i started to cross my fingers and go for it but
then
i thought if i ever ran out of gas
i will never ever ever live it down

so i sucked it up and turned into that station and bought
that expensive gas
felt like i was in california when i bought it

now i know why people stop at that station
lesson learned
sometimes things are worth what you pay for them

the organicgreen doctor