Pay (for it) At The Pump

My beloved MoMo was in need of sustenance to continue moving along the road this morning. I pulled into the O'Hare Oasis and waited patiently for a pump to free up. Once one did, I pulled in, got out in the 11° F (-11°C for you metric folks) weather and primed the pump for the elixir of American-branded-but-Arab-supplied gasoline, 93 Octane Super-V Shell gasoline.

I put the nozzle into the gas tank entry and....nothing. I joggled the handle a number of times and...nothing. "This sucks," I said as I noticed the lady on the other side of the pump was having the same difficulty. So I figured that the pump was bad so I got back into the car and tried another one. I got the same results. "DO THEY NOT HAVE GAS?!" I thought to myself.

I marched up to the cashier and asked, "Are you having problems with your pumps? I can't get any of the pumps on that side of the lot to work."

"What kinda gas you want?" asked the cashier with a what-the-fawk-you-want look on her face.

"Super," I replied.

"Oh, we's out of that. We only have regular and diesel."

Excellent. I froze my butt outside because someone didn't want to walk herself outside to put up a sign letting customers know what as is available. I chuckled to myself because they're quick to do this in the summer.

So, I drove to another gas station with 30 miles left to go in the tank. I show up on fumes to another Shell (that should've been a sign). I pull the car up to a pump, prepay for the gas via credit card, and ... nothing. ARGH! I march up to the cashier and exclaim, "Are you out of gas on any of the pumps?!" I thought maybe there was a nationwide shortage on premium gasoline that CNN forgot to tell me about.

"Uhhh...no, we have gas," the cashier responded.

I marched back to my car and tried again acting as if the walking away and returning to the pump tricked it into giving me gas. No luck there. The attendant came out of his booth and said, "Yeah...you may want to try pumps 4 or 5 because I think the pump is frozen. Sorry. There is nothing I can really do about it."

And I thought, "You could go over to that Lexus and siphon out the gas from his car and put it in mine." However, I kept my mouth shut and got back into the car and moved to a working pump.

At the new pump, I got the machine to work! Hellz yeah! But I'm pumping the wrong grade! DOH! So, after splurging 13¢ on 87 octane, I hung up the nozzle then tried again. As I waited to be authorized from my credit card company, I see "PLEASE SEE ATTENDANT". Gawsh darnit! The attendant comes over the loudpeaker and "secretly" explains my credit card got denied, which makes sense because I tried 5 times already to get gas and credit card company probably thought a hillbilly stole my card and was buying a lot of smokes in northern suburbs. So, I used a new credit card, selected my high-octane, highly-flammable car food, and...viola! It started pumping! I was so excited I danced around the car like Mario Lopez .

Pumping gas has never been so fruitful with activity!

Currently listening : Destroyer By Scabs Release date: By 24 January, 2006