Getting gas

You would think that would be fairly uneventful. Oh, no, not in redneck country, Louisiana.

Saturday night I was taking Zac to a party in Norwood, LA. I was under the impression that Norwood was about 15 miles from where we are in Zachary. The invitation included a small map of how to get to this girl's house and indicated that parents were welcome. That should have been my first warning. The party was at 7:00; we left at 6:30 to stop by Wal Mart to get a gift card and birthday card. I figured Zac would be fashionably late, like 7:15.

We drove and drove. My low-fuel light came on. We were in the middle of nowhere getting a little nervous. We had been driving already about 20 minutes, so I called the girl's house. Her dad, laughingly, asked if we'd made it to Mississippi yet. I said not yet, we had just passed through Slaughter. He told me that if we get to the MS line, we'd gone too far (duh!) and to turn back around and take the first right off of the highway.

At this point I was a little aggravated that the map didn't have any indication that we were going so far away and understood why parents were welcome to attend the party. Who wanted to drive 40 minutes there, and 40 back only to turn back around? I apologized to Zac for being so late. It was already 7:25 and we needed to get gas.

We came into a small town called Ethel and there was a Texaco station at the flashing light intersection. The pump section of the station was new and modern, but the store part of the station was very old with fliers and posters plastered all over the windows and painted wooden signs advertising fresh cracklins. I didn't think much of it since the gas was fully 10c less than that in Zachary. Since we were so late to the party, I thought I'd at least fill up.

That's when the interesting thing happened.

The guy who had the car on the other side of the pump I was using stumbled out of the store, let out a HUGE burp and started filling his car. I could hear liquid spilling out on the ground and thought maybe he didn't get the nozzle in correctly and I started to peek around the pump. I'm so glad I stopped myself because I noticed his feet spread apart farther than was necessary to maintain balance, then I saw a small stream of liquid pooling at the elevated curb where the pump is mounted, THEN I heard the tell-tale sigh of a man satisfied.

He was peeing at the pump while he put gas in his car. Kinda gives new meaning to Pay-at-the-Pump. Tell me you won't think of that next time you get gas! :)

I immediately stopped filling my car, and jumped in the car to take off. The pump was at $15.12. I figured that was enough gas to get out to BFE without being stranded. Zac asked what was wrong. I told him about the man peeing. We had a good laugh and said that if we didn't ever make it to this party, we certainly had an adventure.

By the way, we did make it to the party...AT 7:40! Meghan, the party girl, was really happy Zac and so many of her friends made the effort to get out there. I just wish we had coordinated our efforts better and carpooled.