A NEARLY Explosive Birthday

Getting older isn't all bad. I really had a FANTASTIC birthday weekend.

This past week has been a little hectic (read: Howie's been SUPER stressed). In case we didn't have enough going on, my cousin Ana Maria has been staying with us. Ana Maria is the daughter of my uncle's mail order bride from Columbia. She's a typical tween - 12 going on 39. And she was a GREAT help with Loki - but I think she got a little bored hanging out at home with me while I worked.

So on Friday, I decided to declare it FUN day (it helped that it was my birthday)! We went down to Wetlands Water Park in Jonesborough. It's not much of a water park, but it's not bad for only being about 15 minutes from the house. It has 3 slides, a lazy river and a kids area. Nothing spectacular, but good enough for our purposes.

On our way to the park, I must have had a lot on my mind. I decided we needed to stop and fill up the gas tank because gas was SUPER cheap in Jonesborogh (we're talking $3.68/gallon). As I pull into the gas station, Ana Maria was telling me some story about how she doesn't know how to pump gas and last time she tried, she was with her Dad (my uncle) and the tank overflowed and they lost about 3 gallons of gas. 3 gallons of gas is alot of gas, and I told her as much - thinking she was just exaggerating.

Anyway, as she was wrapping up her story, I had pulled up to the tank and was working on setting up the gas pump. I put the little latch in place to ensure that it would auto-pump the gas and then I told Ana Maria to stay put and watch the pump while I went inside to get a couple of sodas.

(You can probably guess what might have happened next). As I'm paying for the sodas and chit chatting with the rather apathetic gas station attendant, Ana Maria runs into the store screaming about the gas tank overflowing. Well, in all of my brilliance I was certain she was joking so I nonchalantly signed the credit card receipt and while I was doing that I asked the attendant to check to see if the pump was still running. He told me that it was with a glazed over sort of stare and I looked back at him incredulously and said (with quite a bit of emotion developing in my voice), "I THOUGHT IT WAS AN AUTOMATIC SHUT OFF!!!" His very non-emotional response, "So did I."

As I'm running out the door to try and shut off the overflowing pump (which I'm still pretty sure should/could have been done from inside the store by Captain Apathy), another man who had been pumping gas on the other side of the gas station said to the attendant (also in a rather casual - obviously NOT overly excited tone, "Boy, you got you a hose? You're gonna need to hose that down. You gotta rinse that out." Well, this apparently inspired my favorite Gas Man to move his rather obese self into action. He turned around, grabbed a rather small bucket, filled it half way up with water and followed me out the door.

As I stop the gas pump, he splashes his tiny little bucket of water onto the back of my car. GREAT - that's really going to keep the rear of my car from going into flames, I'm thinking. And so I look at him and I say, "Look at my gas cap, it's full of gas, that's no good!" So, my genius "Anti-hero" grabs a wad of paper towels and soaks the gasoline out of my gas cap. Brilliant! Those paper towels, surely aren't flammable!

I'm just waiting for all of this to go TERRIBLY a rye. My cute little silver Ford Focus is floating in a pool of gasoline. You see, my tank only holds 10 gallons and it was over 1/4 full - meaning it probably only needed about 7 or 8 gallons. By the time I got to the pump, I paid for 15 gallons of gas - 8 of which was puddled on the ground beneath my get away car!

Luckily a very nice man had saddled up next to our pump and he helped me push my car out of the river of gasoline. And while the whole event was rather dramatic, catastrophe was averted. We left the station, with a new perfume, but relatively unscathed - other than the emotional damage.

Poor Ana Maria will probably NEVER pump gas EVER. Bless her heart, she tried to tell me that she didn't know how to do it. Gosh, I hope that I can improve those listening skills. I've clearly become a Mom. As soon as a teenager starts talking, I tune out. That can't be good.

The really funny part about all of this, is that a few weeks ago, Whitebread and I got into a heated debate about whether or not you can walk away from the gas pump when the auto pump lever is in place. I was just certain that they always shut off when the tank was full, and he told me that this isn't always the case. Clearly, I didn't believe him and now he is dancing merrily to the "I told you so" tune!

Anyway, aside from the nearly explosive fueling event (talk about having to blow out some candles), the rest of the day went off without a hitch. Ana Maria and I had a BLAST at the water park. On our way back home we passed the same gas station and it was still there - much to my surprise.

So the only great loss was the 8+ gallons of gas seaping into the ground and my dignity.