Miasmatic Review

Lessons learned.

When my I get to half a tank of gas in my truck, I like to top it off. That way it doesn’t seem like I’m spending as much money. Logically I know that is not the case; I just have to stop more often to fill up. A couple of weeks ago the gas price jumped over night by 14 cents to $2.75 the morning I was going to fill up. Figuring that the price would drop off, I decided that I was going to gamble and wait to see if it drops.

It didn’t drop; the price went up by another 20 cents. Finally the day came that my fuel dummy light came on, and I knew it was time to fill up. When that light comes on, that means I only have a couple of gallons left, and at 10-14 miles to the gallon I didn’t feel like gambling anymore. I pull into the next gas station, they where charging $2.95 a gallon for regular. Knowing this was going to hurt the bank account, I started filling up. $20… $30… $40… $50… $60… $70… And then the pump started to slow down to a crawl, a slow crawl. What the hell?!?!?

Did I drain the tank? Was there a problem with the pump? What is going on here?!?! I’m playing with the handle trying to get it to pump faster. Then it stopped pumping all together. No more gas for me. I couldn’t figure out what the hell happened. That is when I noticed that I had reached $75.00. Walking into the store, I ask the clerk what’s going on. That is when I’m told, “There is a dollar cap on the pumps. The pumps will only dispense $75.00 worth of gas at a time. Most of the gas stations in the area have that on the pumps. It helps prevent loss to drive aways.” I look the guy in the eye and explain; well it doesn’t help me at all. I paid at the pump and I’m only slightly over ¾ of a tank full.

So a valuable lesson was learned: I should never gamble, it never works out for me.