By Jim Hagarty
1991
I stepped out of the car and asked the gas station attendant to fill ’er up.
The young man, a friendlier-than-average service-station worker, happily agreed to do as I asked and as the gas pump began to churn, he started a conversation.
“So, how’re you doin’ tonight?” he asked.
“Fine,” I replied, prepared to leave it at that.
A few more litres passed from pump to car.
“Your wife brings this car in for gas once in a while,” he said.
I was a bit startled, as my wife has her own car and hardly ever drives my little red one. And I’ve never known her to stop in to this gas station, on the other side of town.
But what was I to do? Tell him he was mistaking me for someone else when he was trying so hard to be nice?
“Is that right?” I said.
“Yep,” he answered. “She was in just the other day.”
“I see,” I replied.
“One time when she was here, she gave me the wrong credit card and it was out of date,” he continued. “She asked me if I would mind if she went home and got her new one.”
“Boy, I bet she was embarrassed,” I said, checking the meter on the gas pump in hopes the car would soon be full, and I could go. “So, uh, whadja do?”
“Oh, I let her go home,” he smiled. “Maybe I shouldn’t have, but she came right back. We’re supposed to cut up the old cards when people hand them to us but I didn’t.”
“Well, ya, she’s, uh, pretty good about things like that.”
“Ya.”
I looked again at the slowest gas meter in the world as he prepared for more chit chat.
“She says you’re getting pretty good mileage with this car,” he went on.
Now, this was getting serious.
“Yes, not bad,” I said. “About 35 miles to the gallon, I guess.”
“And how about your van?” he asked. “Gettin’ good mileage with the van?”
That did it. I’d agreed myself into a pile higher and deeper than I knew how to climb out of.
“Ya, not too bad,” I said about the gas mileage we get with the van we don’t have.
“She says you really like that van,” the gas jockey said, with a grin on his face that almost hinted he knew I was lying through my teeth.
“Yes, we, uh, really love it,” I said, my forehead sweating in the freezing night air, fearing I was about to be asked more specific questions about the non-existent van, like its make, colour, model year, etc.
But I was saved by the click of the gas nozzle springing closed. And as my new-found friend assured me he’d tell my wife he met me, next time she was in, I revved up the engine and sped out onto the street like Clyde of Bonnie And fame, leaving the scene of the crime.
I was glad I was driving the small car.
I could never have gotten away that quickly in the van.
