My shitty, shitty car (which is still for sale by the way! It gets great mileage!) tends to fog up like I’m driving around with a back seat full of half-naked teenagers drunk on grain-alcohol and energy drinks whenever it rains, so it’s essential to run the AC to clear up the windows. But my car is the model of Japanese efficiency, so engine power is sacrificed in favor of the AC running. 94 horsepower drops to what feels to be about 60 horsepower, and the normally very economical fuel consumption of about 30+ miles per gallon feels like it drops to about 25 or so. Point being, whenever I want to run the AC, I instinctively check the gas gauge to see if the luxury of conditioned air is something I can afford.
This morning, with the needle on the fuel gauge looking like it was fellating the lowest line in the letter “E”, I realized that AC was a luxury I couldn’t afford, but needed desperately. So I pulled into the first gas station I saw on my way to work and parked next to the first empty pump.
I popped my credit card in the card reader, removed it, and waited. I checked the display and it said, “Please remove credit card”. That was odd as the credit card had been removed. It was in my hand. So I swiped the card again, and again I got the same problem. I mashed a bunch of buttons until the request was canceled and then got back into my car and drove to another pump.
The next pump I pulled up to was broken, as was the next one after that. Finally I just got in line behind someone who was already pumping gas, figuring that if they would be able to use the pump, so would I. I waited and waited. And waited and waited and waited. And waited. And then I waited some more. Then I finally realized that there was no one in the fucking car in front of me. The douchewhistler had apparently started pumping gas and then wandered into the mini-mart to acquire packaged pork snacks to help sustain a day-long siege against the olfactory systems of their coworkers.
So I pulled up to another pump, went through the whole fucking tap dance again with the fucking machine, and left, having spent half an hour accomplishing exactly nothing.
I pulled up at the next gas station a little further down the road, and because gas was 2 cents more expensive there than at the previous place, the station was completely empty. The card reader worked like a fucking charm, and within a few minutes I was back on the road, defogging the ever-loving crap out of my windshield.
