People collect all sorts of things: baseball cards,
souvenir spoons, Hard Rock Café shot glasses, ex-husbands,
and all sorts of other things. I collect gas cans.
You see, I have this embarrassing habit of running out of
gas, and since I don’t store my gas can collection in my
car, I invariably have to buy a new can for my collection
each time.
My
most recent “running-out-of-gas” story is by far the worst
I’ve ever experienced. Worse than the time I ran out
of gas in the middle of the night in the middle of Texas.
Worse than when I ran out of gas in a rental car near the
Oakland Coliseum. Worse than when I ran out of gas
about two miles from the Nevada state line with a car full
of would-be snowboarders. Worse than when I ran out
of gas while driving a U-Haul truck in the middle of summer
in the middle of California’s Central Valley (with my girlfriend’s
eight-year-old son along with me). And even worse
than when I ran out of gas on the way home from a roller
hockey game, only to discover that my Sprint cellular phone
refused to make a call whenever I was in Orange County.
I
was driving to Phoenix on Christmas Eve-eve to visit family
for the holidays. During the past eight months, since
my nephew was born last May, I’ve made the drive from LA
to Phoenix countless times. This time, it seemed just
like any other time, driving to Arizona with my 14-year-old
dog, Sparky.
I
started the drive with nearly a full tank—definitely
enough so that I would only need to stop for gas once during
the approximately four hundred mile drive. I only
hoped that it would be enough to get to the Arizona state
line, where the gas is a little cheaper. As I made
my way through pre-holiday traffic in the Inland Empire,
I passed the time by talking on the phone, listening to
music, and listening to Rich Dad’s Cash Flow Quadrant
on tape. The state line came and went and I still
had gas. Everything was great. I decided to
wait a little while longer—that way I could make just
one stop to do everything: get gas, use the restroom,
and get some food.
As
I passed the next exit with a gas station, I noticed that
my needle was nearing the red line, so I looked to see if
there was a sign that told me how far until the next service
station. There was no sign, and, like I said before,
I have driven this route countless times, never before noticing
that there was a 47-mile stretch without a gas station.
So I didn’t worry, even though my gaslight went on just
after I sped past Exit 47 and the last gas station I would
see before running out of gas.
Even
though I didn’t remember there being a long stretch along
Interstate 10 where there wasn’t a gas station (specifically,
between Exits 47 and 94), that stretch nonetheless exists.
I cruised along, becoming increasingly worried that I would
run out of gas. I slowed my speed and tried drafting
behind an eighteen-wheeler to conserve as much fuel as possible.
This strategy worked for approximately thirty miles until
my engine sputtered and died. I activated my hazard
lights, pulled onto the shoulder and allowed my car to coast
until it came to a stop.
Even
though this has happened to me several times before, I panicked
a little bit. I decided to try to get ahold of my
sister, who was probably about an hour and a half away.
She didn’t pick up, and I started thinking rationally about
my options. I remembered looking at my bookshelf,
just before I left for the trip, and seeing the packet of
information that came with my car when I bought it.
Inside that packet was a card for the Ford Roadside Assistance
service, my best option since I don’t have a Triple A membership.
So I called my roommate, hoping that he was at home. Thankfully
he was, and he found the phone number. It looked like
things just took a turn for the better.
I
called Roadside Assistance and I had the pleasure of speaking
to the person least likely to win the Customer Service Associate
of the Month Award. I answered her questions to the
best of my ability. She informed me that free roadside
assistance was only available until my warranty expired,
which was about 50,000 miles ago. Nevertheless, I
told her that I would pay whatever the price, since I had
no idea how far I was from the nearest gas station.
Just then, my phone alerted me that the battery was about
to die. So I let the woman know this, hoping that
it would light a fire under her. It seemed that the
opposite happened.
She
told me that she needed the VIN number to my car.
I didn’t have the number on any of the paperwork in my glove
box and the only way I could get it was by opening my door
into oncoming traffic and reading it to her. I declined
to do this. I didn’t think that it really mattered,
since I wasn’t eligible for the free service anyway.
After she finally accepted that I wasn’t going to give her
my VIN number, she asked for my location. I told her
that I was in western Maricopa County, Arizona, on Interstate
10 East, near mile marker 77. I felt like that was
more than enough information for her to figure out where
I was. However, she kept badgering me for the city
where I was located. “You’ve got to be kidding me,”
I thought. I don’t even know if I’m in an incorporated
town or city, and if I am, I have no idea what it is.
Again, I remind her that my cell phone battery is about
to die. Finally, I remember that I saw a sign for
Tonopah as a town that was coming up in 17 miles or so.
She took that information and, much to my dismay, put me
on hold for what seemed like forever.
When
she returned to the line, she informed me that their nearest
contracted provider was about 60 miles from my location,
and that 60 miles was further than they would go to give
someone gas. She also informed me that I was in a
rather remote location, and that I would have a hard time
getting anyone to bring me gas. I sarcastically thanked
her and hung up.
I
decided to go for a jog. It looked like there were
some lights in the distance, and I figured that I could
make it to a gas station on foot. After I jogged for
about a mile, I noticed that the lights in the distance
looked no nearer than when I had first set out. I
then thought of the time last February when I was driving
through Texas in icy rain. As I came around a bend,
I saw a woman urgently flagging down cars, and I saw that
there was an overturned SUV near her. I normally don’t
stop, but something told me that I should, and so I did.
I found that there was a man trapped inside the SUV.
After calling a State Trooper, who rescued the man from
his car, I waited with him at a nearby truck stop for about
five hours before I drove him to the next town, where he
checked into a motel.
“I
once helped someone on the side of the road. Maybe
someone will do the same for me,” I thought. So I
walked and jogged the mile back to my car, turned on the
reverse lights so people could see me, and I started waving
cars down. I tried this for ten minutes. No
one stopped. Again, I tried calling my sister, but
my phone was completely dead by now. It was time to
figure out a new plan.
I
knew that I had traveled about 30 miles since the last gas
station, so I was betting that the next one would be closer
than that. The thought of walking back 30 miles was
not a pleasant one. So I attached a note to my car
stating that I was walking east on the highway to get gas
and that I would appreciate it if someone would pick me
up. I then started jogging. I’m definitely not
in shape, and my legs had started to cramp from the two
miles I had traveled earlier. Nevertheless, I was
determined to get gas, and this was the best of my remaining
options. I jogged about two miles before I came upon
two pick-up trucks on the side of the road.
One
of the two men—a middle-aged Latino man—was
changing a tire on the older of the two trucks. I
begged the men to drive me to a gas station, and they agreed
to take me once the tire had been changed, which they said
would take about an hour. I thought for a second and
then asked him how far it was to the next service station.
When he told me that it was nearly twenty miles, I opted
to wait for him to finish with the tire change, which ended
up taking only twenty minutes.
I
rode with the man for seventeen miles, until we reached
Tonopah and he dropped me off at a gas station. I
thanked him profusely, and he refused to take the $40 that
I offered him. Ford Roadside Assistance had wanted
to charge me over $80 to have gas brought to me, so I figured
that $40 for a ride to the gas station was reasonable.
Being the saint that he is, the man refused any sort of
compensation.
I
entered the gas station and discovered that I must not be
the only person with the bizarre habit of collecting gas
cans, as they were out of stock. I headed across the
street to the only other gas station in the vicinity.
Luckily, not only did they have gas cans in stock, but they
had two different types! I selected a mint-condition
can with an innovative ventless design that I had never
before seen. What a find! On top of that, it
was only $5.99. What a bargain! I’ve spent up
to $12.99 on a gas can in the past!
I
filled the can to the brim and headed to the westbound on-ramp,
hoping that someone would give me a ride back to my car.
Just as I neared the on-ramp, the streetlight burned out.
Now it was dark, and it would be much harder for people
to see me. Luckily, the third semi-truck that passed
me
stopped and offered to give me a ride. Unluckily,
the driver was pretty scary looking, but I didn’t have much
of a choice, so I hopped in. I then learned that he
was even more talkative than he was scary looking.
He told me all about life on the road and his misadventures
while transporting loads of feces from Carson, CA to somewhere
in Arizona. Yes, he hauled loads of crap. Apparently,
the greater Los Angeles metropolitan area does not have
the means to process all of the waste it produces, so it
trucks some of it out of the area. I was keenly interested
in his story of having to “shift the load” because there
was too much weight over one of the axles, and he was caught
at the weigh station. I don’t know how deep he had
to dive into the load, but he did mention that it involved
cutting a slit in one of the tarps. Yummy.
We
approached mile marker 77 and saw that my car was still
there, so he dropped me off and I played Frogger to get
back to my car. I emptied the gas can into my tank
and was on my way. Of course, my gaslight lit back
up almost immediately, but thankfully, I knew that it was
only 17 miles to the gas station.
I
guess I’m finally getting to that age where the Christmas
gifts tradition is being passed on to the next generation,
since this was the first year that neither of my parents
gave me anything. That being the case, I think it’s
entirely appropriate then that I bought myself an early
Christmas present: a shiny new gas can for my collection.
Oliver
can be reached at oliver@babblog.com.
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