Gas Station Guru

May 9, 2005

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.
 

10 comments

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by From Away on May 10, 2005 at 2:04 am. Reply #

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.

by Simon Jessey on May 9, 2005 at 4:34 pm. Reply #

Great post Erik.

I never want to read the words “Anus” and “Burger” in the same com­ment ever again.

by Donnie Jeter on May 9, 2005 at 5:57 pm. Reply #

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?

by Simon Jessey on May 9, 2005 at 6:00 pm. Reply #

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.

by beto on May 9, 2005 at 6:02 pm. Reply #

Appar­ently, there’s not such a thing like cell phones and spon­ta­neous com­bus­tion at gas sta­tions. It’s all made up.

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.

by Simon Jessey on May 9, 2005 at 9:30 pm. Reply #

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.

by Peter Flaschner on May 9, 2005 at 11:18 pm. Reply #

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!

by Sprons on May 10, 2005 at 2:02 pm. Reply #

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.

by Aaron on May 11, 2005 at 2:50 pm. Reply #

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.

by kartooner on May 12, 2005 at 11:19 am. Reply #

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