Mister Smart Runs out of Gas

So the other day I ran out of gas on the highway. Luckily I was able to steer my now idling car through traffic and over to a little grassy knoll on the side of the road, where I proceeded to sit and swear loudly for a really long time. Then I got out of the car and kicked it a few times for good measures. Then I stared out at all the cars driving along happily that were full of gas and prayed really hard that the people driving them would get severe involuntary diarrhea right there. Then I called my mom like a 6 year old and asked her to come meet me on the grassy knoll and bring some gas with her. Then I had to wait an hour for her, because my sister was using her car and was out someplace getting her toenails polished or something. Then I stood around swearing and punching the air for a while until I found some golf balls in the grass. Then I threw the golf balls out into traffic to see what would happen. Then I angrily shook the fence separating the highway from the frontage road for a while. Then I peed on the grassy knoll and waved my ding dong at the traffic in disgust. Then my mom finally showed up.

Apparently my car does the bare minimum to remind you that you need gas. I learned this the hard way. My old car had lots of bells and whistles that told you you needed fuel, and the car would eventually start actively trying to steer you towards gas stations, and finally a little tweezers would emerge from the driver's seat and start pinching your scrotum every 30 seconds until you filled up. (Side Note: The tweezers was rusty. And filthy!)

My new car took a more laissez-faire approach to it's thirst. 20 seconds before you run out of gas a small light shaped like a gas can lights up, and if you happen to be loudly rapping along with an Eminem song and bouncing around in your seat, it's pretty easy to miss.

So as I was sitting alongside the highway, swearing and contemplating ways to murder random civilians with full gas tanks, I kept thinking to myself, "MMM Old Country Buffet!!!" This made no sense to me. Then I realized that Old Country Buffet played a large role in the last time I ran out of gas, some 16 years earlier.

Let me take you back to April 1994. I had just met some friends and crushed the buffet at the OCB in Minnetonka. I had a 1975 Pontiac Bonneville (The EvilMobile to those in the know), and one of it's fun little quirks was that the gas gauge had stopped working in 1976. The other fun quirks were that you couldn't lock all the doors at the same time so stupid high schoolers would break in and smoke weed in it, the spark plugs would randomly fall out, and it had a bad habit of breaking down when it had a keg in it's trunk and an entire party was waiting for it.

Anyhow, since the gas gauge didn't work, you just kind of had to guess how much gas you had. Apparently I guessed wrong, since it died at a Tom Thumb about 2 miles away from my house. So, being that I wasn't that far from home, and I had like 30 cents in my pocket, I decided I'd just leave the car there and walk back. This proved to be a really bad idea.

I got about 3 blocks away from the car when I realized I had to go to the bathroom. Bad. I started walking a little faster. Walking faster made me have to poop worse. So I slowed down. I came to a bus stop. A man harangued me for money so I gave him the 30 cents. In retrospect I should have just pooped on him. I walked on.

I got to about a mile away from home. This was now a serious crisis. I came to a golf course. I considered pooping behind a tree, but there were a lot of golfers out there and I didn't want them to see my butt. I walked on.

I got about a half a mile away. I was now getting desperate. I came to a bridge going over a creek. Since I was about 50/50 if I was going to poop in my pants by then I decided I'd just poop off the bridge into the creek. Right as I was getting ready an armada of police cars drove by me. I took this as a sign. I didn't want to get arrested for pooping in the creek. I thought that might be a felony. I walked on.

I got a block from my house. I was now sweating profusely from the effort, and I realized that for the last couple of blocks I had been muttering "OH NO" over and over in sync with my footsteps. I wasn't sure if I was going to make it. "OH NO OH NO OH NO". A mean looking dog was giving me the eye and looking like he might start growling. "OH NO OH NO OH NO." My shoelaces had both come untied and a hornet was crawling on my shoulder. "OH NO OH NO OH NO." Two people were out mowing their lawns and I was holding my butt cheeks together with my hand and they would notice. "OH NO OH NO OH NO."

The story ends happily though. I made it home without crapping my pants, and then I had to take a nap because I was so exhausted from the ordeal. Running out of gas really sucks!