It's funny the things we do to rebel. My dad would always look to fill up the car the instant the fuel gauge dipped below half. Now I wonder what that was about, actually. Certainty? Safety? Was it a kind of frugality? Sure enough, if you always fill the tank at around half, you will pay less at the pump. Of course you'll have to fill more often, but that's beside the point.
So tomorrow, or Saturday, whenever I drive the car into town (hopefully without running out of gas), when I fill the car, the total will be high. And unlike my dad, from about St. Jean home I was wondering if I'd make it. Well I knew I'd make it, actually. But still I had to wonder. The "low fuel" bell had rung, the needle was showing right on, and then slipped below, the bottom line of the gauge.
I told myself that if I got home, and if I was still worried, I had a few litres of gas in the jerry-can. For me, tonight, I didn't fill up because I didn't want to put in gasohol from the Husky in Morris. I'm not convinced about gasohol, and I was thinking that if I was going fill the car up with that much fuel, I might as well pay one of the local guys and keep the money in town. Lord knows Morris needs help, but I'm not the one, I think. And then there's the bank account. It's payday tomorrow, and I didn't want to risk filling and swiping the card on a near empty account (another thing that we run to empty pretty regularly).
M., my dad's third wife, is running on empty too. She's being paneled. You know what that means. She'll probably "pass" the panel and go into a full care facility, in a room separate from dad. He's still got some fuel in the tank, but it's hard for him to watch her run down to the dregs. Probably because he's always been intent on not getting caught too low, he's struggling to understand how she could let it get this way. (And it seems that this is what's happening; though the engine still has a few miles on it, she's just not looking for a fill.)
Today I can see the wisdom in not letting the tank get too empty. If you run too low at times, you can lose your sense of where the filling stations might be. You might get yourself into the kind of bind that you can't refuel yourself through. Though I'm not sure that this means that I won't run the car low on occasion, once again I'll appreciate the prudence of my dad. Prudence. Huh.
in: 1'C wind 15ks ENE
out: 1'C wind 15ks ENE
1 comment:
I remember Dad saying 'it doesn't cost any more to drive on a full tank'. (which I don't think is actually true, since fuel is pretty heavy - but I don't recall ever mentioning that to him) Regardless, I wonder if he was aware that his never-let-the-needle-dip-below-half behaviour might appear conspicuous to others and he felt the need to defend it.
Good post. I hope you have plenty of fuel in the tank when you face that hill in France.
Tim.
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