#237 - GAS ALMOST GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK

Written on 5/13/12:


I have been in Connecticut for a week taking care of my grandkids while my daughter and son-in-law have fun in the sun in COSTA RICA!  Pat's company awarded him (and his wife BUT NOT HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW) a trip for being #1 in sales.  They got an all expenses paid trip to a luxuriously appointed retreat and I got an all expenses paid trip top CT.  Not complaining just saying'


The week has gone smoothly and I have enjoyed getting to the number 1 person for my grandchildren to to go when help is needed.  They are in all kinds of activities and I don't see how my daughter gets it all straight.  She is sooooooo organized and had it all printed out for me with names and addresses plus anything else I might need (plus cash to blow...yeah!).  My first act as grandmother was to go out to dinner and a movie (on a school night).  While the parents were ensconced in a hotel last Sunday night ready for an early Monday morning departure, the kids and I went out on the town.


We ate at Friendly's and if you don't have one where you live then you have missed a great place to take kids to eat.  The desert is to die for!  After dinner we went to see THE AVENGERS!  I didn't think I would like it but I did.  Guess I am still a kid at heart because I thought it was funny and exciting dispute the ridiculous premiss.


But, it is the ridiculous thing that happened to me several days later that really cracked me up.  I had to run back to the theater to pick up the hoodie that my grandson left in his seat (no surprise there...the only surprise is that I hadn't left something also).  On the way home I noticed I was almost out of gas so I stopped in the Shell station is the town just before my daughter's place.


Let me digress a moment to tell you about her neck of the woods.  One can not drive from point A to point B without traversing ever direction of a compass, negotiating hairpin turns, climbing steep hills, or
zipping down into valleys.  It is a nightmare during the night and an interesting drive during the day (avoiding turkeys, geese, and other cars on a narrow two lane road).  Needless to say the roads around here are not conducive to gas efficiency.  So on with the story... ... ...

This is what her car looks like (well except for the fact that
hers is much older and definitely not sooooo shiny).

I was in desperate need of gas however the button with which I needed to pop the gas tank lid was no where to be found.  The attendant came out of the office and tried to help.  He couldn't find it either so he called his boss away from a car he was servicing and they both poured over the inside of the car.


As for myself, I was visualizing the kids getting off the school bus without my smiling face to greet them and protect them the one half block from the corner to their home.  I was envisioning not being able to get Shay off to soccer practice or Logan to his baseball game.  I was envisioning just how much it was going to cost me to rent a car or how much it was going to cost if I had them pry the panel open... ... ...and on and on and on.


In a bit of a snit over my dilemma and potential negative outcomes I walked back to where the gas tank was hidden by the offending door and smacked it.  Then pop...the darned thing just sprang open.  I mean, my daughter's car is a fairly new Cadillac and who would have thought that it didn't one of those little openers.


I felt like such a fool, but I was in good company with two supposedly knowledgeable guys also fooled.


kt 5/2012

COMING ATTRACTIONS:

#238 - GOOD AIM, GIRL

#239 - AN ACCOMPLISHED THIEF