Running out of gas

Sadly, that's not a metaphor. I've run out of gas twice in the past few weeks. Because my gas gauge is broken? Uh, no. Because I've gotten in the habit of pushing the limits of how far into the orange it goes. (Apparently, not as far as it used to.)

I can't understand myself why I hate getting gas so much. You pull up to the station, open your gas cap, tell them fill er up with 92, give them $3 US, and get change. It's possibly a hold-over from back when I mixed up "fill 'er up" and "to go" in Chinese, much to the confusion of both gas station attendants and the lady at the local noodle stand.

I think what gets me is that it's so convenient- there really are gas stations everywhere, so there's no need to settle for anything less than a 5-star gas-getting experience, complete with a free packet of tissues. I'd never cross traffic to get to one, but I've also started passing up perfectly good gas stations, because they've got a person out front waving a flag and I think that's stupid, or because they promise a 2-minute gas-getting experience but only for taxi cabs and that's not fair, or because once at that gas station it was really busy and I had to push my scooter forward so the next person in line could start to get gas, and then put my wallet away and start my scooter, and that was really annoying.

So I've wound up pushing my scooter a few minutes to the nearest gas station a couple of times. To my credit, I've only let myself run out of gas when I have no place to be, and it's a nice day, but still. I think I'll just bite the bullet and fill up at stations that offend my aestetic sensibilities when I get below a quarter tank.