Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Out of Gas

What exactly is the point of the display in the car that tells me I have so many miles left of gas in the tank when it is not honest?

The thing said I could drive 20 more miles on the gas I had in the tank.

But when Tgirl and I came out of her piano lesson this evening the thing would not start. It was, for all intensive purposes, out of gas.

And where exactly in the tank is the gauge that monitors how much gas is left in there? Is it in the back of the tank so that when you are parked on an uphill slope the gas pools back there and tells you you have more than you really do? Which is what happened the last time I ran out of gas at work (It was nearly 2 years ago - no, I am not in the habit of running out of gas in the car!) Or is it in the front so that when facing downhill, as we were outside the piano teacher's house, the car can lie to me and tell me I have enough gas to drive for twenty more miles at the same time that it refuses to start.

Regardless of where that monitor is or how it works, it has problems with being totally truthful.

Tgirl and I went back to Miss J's (the piano teacher) door to ask to please borrow a sweatshirt for Tgirl for the walk to the gas station. Miss J very kindly offered us the gas in the garage that she has for her lawn mower. Only, she didn't know how to get the gas to come out of the nozzle so that it would go into the car's tank. And neither did I. So we experimented a bit, resulting in me getting gas all over my hands, before finally figuring it out.

All's well that ends well so they say.

Does anyone know how to get the smell of gas off one's hands? Washing for a long time in excessive amounts of dish soap and antibacterial hand soap does not work. Neither does washing in ketchup. The stench has dissipated, but is not gone. I now have very dry hands that smell of gas.

(Hey, if tomato juice works to get out skunk smell when nothing else will, then theoretically ketchup should work on the smell of gas. Right? Wrong.)

2 comments:

McLipp said...

I think that rubbing your hands with parsley is supposed to help get the smell of onion off of them so it may help with gas? Too late now I'm sure but there's always next time :) I just drove my car up to the 4 miles left point and boy do the numbers tick down fast when you hit the single digits! Luckily I made it to the gas station....

Teacup Teacher Mom said...

Thanks for the idea, I will keep it in mind. Unfortunatly, I have a feeling that it won't be the last time I spill gas on my hands.

I am impressed that you have gotten down to single digits. 20 miles left of gas is as low as I have gotten before running out. I have also run out at 25 miles of gas left.