February 8th

I bet you can all guess why I took a picture of a red, plastic container. If you can’t guess, it’s because I ran out of gas today and had the pleasure of walking to the gas station and purchasing it. My gas gauge is broken so I have no idea when my tank is almost empty. I usually go by the mileage. According to the numbers I still could have gone at least 20 more miles. Well, I was wrong. For the past week I’ve been thinking I should just get gas because it’s been a while but I would look at my mileage and think “eh, it can wait.” I actually had a bit of good karma to help cushion my stupidity. Remember that my roommate got in a wreck a couple weeks ago? Well, she’s been driving a rental car while her car was being repaired. Today, her car was finally ready to be picked up so she had to drop her car off at the rental place this morning. I followed her over there and she rode with me to campus before class. After my first class she called me for a ride home because her original ride had backed out. I didn’t mind, so I drove from our house to campus and back to her house before heading to ceramics. The ceramics studio is about 3 miles from our house and a little over a mile from campus. I headed down Chautauqua to take my usual route to class and was already running a little late because of the taxi service.

Right after I turned onto Imhoff my car started sputtering kinda and slowed down. I knew what was going on and knew I had it coming eventually since I had put it off so much. The good karma comes in because of the location of where my car came to a halt. It was not even a block away from a gas station. It was actually the only gas station in probably a mile radius. I pulled over to the side of a not so busy four-lane street and put my flashers on. I grabbed my wallet and trekked over to 7-11. I’ve never filled a gas can before so I didn’t know what I was doing. The cashiers were really nice and helped me out. I filled up the can and walked back. Only as I was about to pour the gas into my tank did someone pullover and ask if I needed help. Granted, I wasn’t far away from the gas station and didn’t linger in my car when I realized I was out of gas.

The other part of the good karma has to do with when I ran out of gas. I ran out on the way to class and it was cold but it hadn’t started snowing yet. I also take a different route to go home than I do to go to class. If I had run out of gas after class I would have been on busy two-lane roads away from a gas station and causing a big traffic jam. That would have been super embarrassing and I would have felt really bad for making everyone late for class. So, in a way, I have the unlicensed 16 year-old who hit Jen’s car to thank. Crazy how everything effects something else.

Now, I feel all independent and grown up. I did it all by myself. I didn’t have to call someone to save me and didn’t freak out. I could probably fix a leaky faucet or lay drywall. Maybe not quite yet but if I had to I bet I could do it.

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