The Fuel Fool

I was tooling along, minding my own business, when the
car suddenly lurched.

Alarmed, I turned off the radio and listened. Everything
sounded OK. Just as I was beginning to think maybe it had all
been in my head, my trusty steed lurched again, harder, with
more urgency. Deceleration increased even as I gradually
floored the accelerator.

Stomach in my throat, I quickly scanned the gauges. They
looked exactly as they had moments earlier: the heat gauge
was pointed straight up at the middle, while the gas needle
rested securely on the peg beside the "E".

Quoting the great philosopher Homer Simpson, I spat out
a very loud "Do'oh!" -- or something to that effect.

It wasn't my fault! My previous vehicle would go a good
60 miles after the "low fuel" light came on, and I wasn't yet
fully familiar with the foibles of this particular flivver.

The odometer revealed that a mere 20 miles had rushed
under my wheels since the "low fuel" warning had chimed.
Aha! This proved that I was, at most, just 1/3 to blame for
this predicament!

Once I had safely pulled onto the shoulder, I used my
cell phone to alert the highest possible authority.

"We have a problem," I reported. "It appears that
excessive outgassing has created a negative vehicle
propellant condition."

"You doofus!" exclaimed my wife's voice from the other
end, "Didn't I say this was going to happen to you someday?
Why do you do these stupid things?"

It was hard to think of a retort at that exact moment.
A semi truck was roaring past just four feet away, 80,000
pounds of rubber and steel blasting by at 80 MPH. The shock
waves caused my puny car to tremble like a leaf in a
hurricane.

My next cell phone call was to summon help. Ruefully
noting that a gas station sat just six miles away, I thought,
"Just my luck! Had I only bucked my seat belt on the go
instead of letting the car idle those 30 seconds, I might
have made it!"

Part of the problem is that I have too many things to
worry about nowadays. Does my toothpaste have enough
whitening power? Will Britney need more rehab? Is Cialis
right for me? What is Cialis anyway?

Now that I've had time to reflect on my out-of-gas
experience, I have an answer to my wife's "why" question:
It's a guy thing.

It's a guy thing to occasionally tempt Fate. It's part
of our nature to put the occasional snowmobile through the
ice, or make wings out of wax and feathers and see how close
we can fly to the sun.

It's thus a guy thing to get your gas tank as empty as
possible. The ultimate guy gas experience is to run out just
as we catch sight of the filling station, coasting in with a
dead engine, the momentum carrying us to just within reach of
the gas hose.

My wife deems this dumb. This is because she, like most
females, embraces the belief that it's just as easy to keep
the top half of the tank full as the bottom half. But where's
the fun in that? Where's the thrill, the challenge?

This "always be prepared" attitude is why my wife is
never without her purse, a bulky leather satchel that's heavy
enough to contain an entire car. Even so, I know for a fact
that the female gender has a less-than-spotless record in the
area of fuel management.

One fall, my wife was tooling along when she came across
a stalled tractor and wagon. Stopping to investigate, she
found that the pilot of said tractor was Rosie, our neighbor
lady.

As my wife gave a grateful Rosie a ride back to her
place, Rosie explained that the tractor's fuel gauge was
broken. She had hoped she could make at least one more trip
to town before refueling, but was obviously mistaken.

"I'm so glad you stopped!" said Rosie to my wife. "I
feel so silly for running out of fuel. I didn't even have my
purse with me!"

Were up to my wife, I, too, would always carry a purse.
And somewhere deep in its cavernous interior there would
always be a 5-gallon can of fuel.