Gas

I went to a corner gas station yesterday because my fuel needle was hovering between the bottom-most line on the gas gauge and the first marker. This region is orange and intended to show danger if not addressed.

It was warm outside, and I drove with the windows down. Out of the four adjustable windows in my late '90s Jeep, only the front driver's side was down. They are all hand-cranked and inconvenient to turn.

I slid my bank card in and out of the card reader on the pump - pump two - and I began to move the fuel needle out of the orange danger area.

A white SUV pulled up to the opposite side of the pump I was using. The SUV was facing the same direction as mine, toward the store. Its fuel door was on the passenger side. I thought that placement would bother me. I like the driver-side fuel door. I imagined that it would be harder for me to judge my distance from the fuel pump if the fuel door was on the passenger side.

I was watching the black digital numbers tick on the pump's display. I pulled down the spring-loaded piece that fits into grooved teeth on the metal guard of the pump handle and let gas to flow freely into the tank of my Jeep.

The pump was dusty, and on one side, there was a square white sticker with black bold print that said, "PROLONGED EXPOSURE TO FUMES WAS FOUND TO HAVE CANCER IN LABORATORY MICE."

That was only a portion of the entire wording, which I can not remember. But I considered whether brief exposure to fumes over several years tallies up to prolonged exposure.

A man and a woman were in the white SUV on the opposite side of the pump I was using; their side was pump one. He was out working the pump, and the woman sat in the car. The front two windows of their white SUV were down, and she was wearing large, rounded-square plastic sunglasses, and she was not listening to the radio.

His head was shaved, and he had a goatee, and he wore thin, angular athletic sunglasses.

My right hand was on the pump, and I propped myself against it and looked out on the highway to avoid looking at him. As the digital numbers in the "Amount Sold" display neared $40, I took back control of the handle's trigger.

The man putting fuel into the white SUV said that it is about time that we see some relief with fuel prices, and he asked didn't I agree.

I agreed.

He said it's unbelievable and frustrating how much the cost of fuel has risen since he was a kid and it averaged 96 cents.

I agreed.

I said that I even remember fuel costing little more than a dollar. "And I'm not -" I was going to say old, but I realized that he was not old, and it would be rude to indicate that I felt him so much older than me.

"And I'm 22," I said.

We exchanged frustrations. I had long stopped fueling my Jeep. I joked about the Keystone Pipeline. His wife spoke up for the first and only time from the passenger seat. That oil won't go to China if a Republican is elected president, she said. She guaranteed me that.

She was a fifth-grade teacher at my elementary school. I remember her, but she does not know me. I wondered if after I told my age she calculated in her head that I could have been a student of hers 11 years ago. 

I concluded that the entire oil ordeal is frustrating. The man agreed.

"And I fought for this country ..." he said. He didn't finish his thought. I wondered if it was that he felt he deserved relief even more than I, or any civilian, do or does. I wondered if he suddenly thought less of me because I didn't, and won't, fight. I could feel him examining me - my face alone visible to him because of the pump - and holding something back.

I said nothing. He said nothing. His mouth curled into a shape that I could not identify as either a smile or a frown. He swiveled his head slightly to the right with the strange expression in his lips. I was ready to end our conversation.

"Well, we'll see," I said. What we'll see, I don't know. He agreed. I told them to have a good evening, and I meant it.