If you need you oil changed I'll do it for you free...

(I was intending to post this LAST night, but then my cable went out. No TV, no Internet...oh, the horror. At any rate, all this happened yesterday)

the oil in my car needed changed so I left it with the mechanic today to get that done (yeah, the fact that the macho-manly Uncle Polt can't change the oil in his own car plays way against my stereotype, i know.) and I took mom's Jetta to work. She called me last night and said she'd put a 20 on the seat and asked me to fill it up with gas in hagerstown where I work, cause it's about 10 cents a gallon cheaper over there. I said sure.

This morning, I get in the car, and the 20's right there. I stuffed it in my pocket and off I went. After a (thankfully) uneventful day at work, I headed back out to mom's car, reached in my pocket for the 20...and found it gone. I checked my pockets in both my pants and my sweatshirt, and checked my wallet, and nope, it wasn't there. It must have fallend out when i reached in to get something else out. Man that pissed me off.

I got in the car and was on my way to Sheetz to get the gas, but I saw the interstate was damn near a parking lot, soI had to drive through town, always a fun adventure during rush hour. I got to Sheetz, and saw it was a mad house as well, which wasn't a surpise considering it was rush hour.

I saw an empty pump and headed that way, and as I did so I realized I had no idea which side of the car the gas cap was on. I was heading towards the pump with the drivers side nearest it, so i took a chance and pulled in that way. I got out and looked, and, yep, you guessed it, it was on the passengers side. So i pulled out of where I was intending on turning around and pulling back in, but as I pulled out a minivan pulled in behind me. bastard.

I saw a car pull away from another pump and, after feeling like a salmon swimming upstream as I fought my way through the other cars and pedestrians to the second pump, I was situated properly. I got out, taking the keys with me, locked the doors and walked to the other side. I saw the cover to the gas cap...but no way to open it. There wasn't a little lip there to stick my finger under and lift it up. I pushed on it, thinking it might be one of those thingees where you push in and it pops up and open. But that didn't work. thinking a few seconds more (just standing there staring at it, mind you), I realized it probably had a unlocking thing inside.

I went back to the other side and opened the driver's door. It was dark, but there was light from the car light, but I still had trouble seeing the buttons on the door. I pushed one that looked like it might unlock it...but instead it unlocked all the car doors. Only then did I see it further down the door and pulled it up, thus unlocking the cap.

I paid with my debit card, hit the button for the right gas (I checked it before doing so, what with my luck I wanted to be sure), put the nozzle in and started pumping. I hooked the pump handle so it could pump on its own while I tried to keep warm standing in the blowing wind.

Before long, the handle popped, indicating it was done. I checked the pump, and it said just 10.69. Mom said it would take almost all the $20. I figured it was fuller than she realized, so i pulled the nozzle out and put it back and replaced the gas cap, shut it little door, and got back in and started home.

I was about halfway between Sheetz and home when I happened to glance at the gas indicator: a tad over half full! I have no idea why the nozzle popped like it was finished when obviously it wasn't! But I wasn't gonna go back then. I continued home and dropped the car off at moms. I went in and told her all about this, and while we were laughing, I pulled a twenty out and gave it to her. She didn't want to take it, but since I lost her twenty, and she allowed me to take her car, I figured, aw what the hell, I'd just give her one.

that's the first time $10 worth of gas cost me $30.

POLT

Every word you say is like a pitchfork to my dignity. - Huntress, Birds Of Prey#68