Scene From A Gas Station

This morning I was running my normal Saturday errands and stopped at a Mobil station to fill up the truck for the week ahead. I like to have a full tank prior to the week starting, because I dislike stopping before or after work unless it's absolutely necessary. This must be linked in some way to my latent OCD, but I'm too lazy to give it much thought.

As I was pulling up to a pump, a gentleman exited the mini-mart and pulled up short, thinking I might run over him. I waved him by and he raised his hand in acknowledgement and walked on to his well used Chevy Suburban sitting just opposite of me. I followed him with my eyes and saw that the Suburban was occupied by an unattractive heavy set woman and an equally unattractive heavy set 20-something man. I took these two to be related, as they were both of the same general body type.

As I was preparing to put gas in the truck, I wondered how a reasonably pleasant looking fellow had hooked up with a really unpleasant looking woman like that. Had theirs been a marriage of convenience? Did he have a really crummy personality and she was the best he could do? Or was he being kidnapped by these two beasts?

These are the kinds of things that go through my mind in a split second, and I've long since given up on trying to figure out why I think this way. It's just me.

So, as I was spinning my story in my head, I happened to glance down from the woman's face to her arm sticking out the side window and saw that she had a lit cigarette in her hand. As I looked at the back seat, I saw that Junior also had his hand sticking out his side window, also with a lit cigarette.

I drew my hand away from the start button on the pump and stared at the woman. Then we had the following exchange, which went a little bit like this ...

Fat Woman: What?

Me: Oh nothing. I'm just waiting for you to leave before I start pumping gas so I don't blow us all up!

Fat Woman: Sputter.

Me: Morons.

Fat Woman: Fuck you!

Me: No, fuck you.

The husband/kidnapee put the vehicle in gear and left the station lot, but the fat woman managed to flip me the bird before they disappeared into traffic. I turned my pump on and began filling the tank.

Sigh ...