I can’t put my finger on it, but lately I’ve been experiencing zen-like situations at gas stations. Of all places to get in touch with my Buddhist or Chi side, a gas station never sprung forth in my mind as a location to have personal revelation. Typically when I pull up to the pump all I want to do is fill up my car and move on, but for the past few weeks that hasn’t always been the case.
Just the other day a gentleman who looked to be in his late-50s was chatting with his work buddy as he filled up their truck. His hair was completely white and he resembled, at least to me, W.C. Fields. His face was covered in grease and his hands looked like torn leather, but his smile was geniune. As I glanced over he chuckled to himself and said, “Life’s too short to not have fun.”
Now in my lifetime I’ve been reminded of this many times, by my family and my friends, but it hits a stronger chord when it’s coming from someone who, at least upon first impression, doesn’t seem like a person who would heed that kind of advice. I guess this should be coupled with, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.
I smiled back, lifted the nozzle and slid it back into its resting place and thought to myself that when we are most vunerable in our daily lives, worrying about financial issues, sick relatives and other things to occupy our minds, it’s always nice to remember that there is someone or something out there to remind us that life is too short to not have fun every once in awhile.
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All of my recent stops at gas stations have involved being fleeced by the oil companies and the nations that supply them. I thought I’d put high gas prices behind me when I left England (the high price there is mostly down to taxes).
And while I’m thinking about gas stations, let me rant for a moment. I’ve always been told that using a cellular phone in a gas station is a very bad idea, yet not a day passes that I don’t see people pumping gas with one hand and jawing on the phone with the other. Recently, a blatant example of this featured one of those incredibly annoying Nextel walkie-talkie phones that make these beeping noise before emitting the garbled voice of some half-witted moron who thinks they’re cool.
Following this train of thought for a moment (sorry about hijacking your post, Erik), I noticed someone using one of these infernal things while sitting on the crapper in a service plaza. Incredibly, this guy was talking to a woman (presumably his wife, since he referred to her as “honey”) while his anus was making as much noise as his mouth.
Anyway, it is nice to see that some people have their priorities in order. Your white-haired sage was quite correct. You don’t have long on this Earth, relatively speaking, so you need to make the most of it. I’m going to be buying a grill this weekend, and I plan to spend much of the summer grilling meat to consume on my new back deck. When you see me stuffing a cheeseburger-with-onions into my mouth, cooked over my very own flames, you’ll see that my smile will be just as genuine as the one the guy in the gas station had.
Great post Erik.
I never want to read the words “Anus” and “Burger” in the same comment ever again.
I’m sorry, Donnie. You make a great point about that unfortunate combination. I did go off on a bit of a tangent, didn’t I?
Apparently, there’s not such a thing like cell phones and spontaneous combustion at gas stations. It’s all made up.
That, however, won’t stop the gas station attendants from making funny faces at me if I’m seen waving my cell phone.
Back on topic, there is a saying that goes more or less by the lines of “The man gets old too soon and sage too late”. How (sorely) true this is! The man you refer to in here had this very clear. I just wished some of my overstressed (and in turn, overstressing) work colleagues realized this and stop taking themselves and everything around them too seriously.
That may indeed be true, but I wonder if the same tests have been applied with the walkie-talkie-style phones. Put it this way — when I’m standing in a pool of gasoline next to a sign that says “don’t use cell phones because we’ll all blow up”, I’m inclined to get a bit peeved if Mr. Nextel is having a conversation with his bookie.
Erik,
Thanks for that post. I’m reading it at the end of a crazy day, with hours to go before I sleep, as the poet said. It’s a great hit of perspective.
ps: I can’t believe I chose helvetica. lucidia grande looks SO much better.
The last time I went to a gas station was because I needed some cigaretes. The price in this time of the year was so high that I went home to pick up a ladder!
It’s always the usual routine when I visit the gas station. Fill up, move on to the next task. Though I do witness some situations where things seem to make sense. The other day I was driving with a cowoker and we saw a crazy motorcyclist driving right past us, weaving in and out of traffic on a two lane road. He even went on the wrong side of the road, nearly hitting a few oncoming cars. At that point we both agreed that not only was he crazy, but that life can be that way sometimes.
Simon: That’s one of my pet peeves as well, people that are too ignorant to notice warning signs, even if the message is debatable.
Donnie: You and me both. However, Simon does have a point, and that is there are a lot of stupid, ignorant people out there to watch out for.
Peter: Helvetica and Arial are nice, legible fonts but Lucida Grande seems to have more style to it.
Sprons: It’s an expensive habit (or addiction), isn’t it? I don’t smoke but a few family members of mine do and they are always complaining about how expensive cigarettes are.
Aaron: I’ve seen something similar before and it always amazes me that people make up their own rules while driving.