I’m sorry…
Or: Drunk or Sober, Sometimes Doing a Runner is the Only Option…
I was telling a story at dinner last night and everyone laughed and said I should put it in a blog post. I’m sitting here trying to find an allegory. I think however, this was just one of those Marilyn moments I would do drunk or sober, hung or clear headed and there is no analogy to be had.
I was going to look at a townhouse in St Augustine and I had to stop for gas at that excruciatingly busy Gate gas station on Philips Highway. It was per usual, packed. I Got out of the car and was distracted by a argument being waged by a couple in separate vehicles, one on either side of an adjacent pump. He was in a gardener’s truck with a trailer and lawn-cutting accoutrements attached, she was in a beater Toyota coupe. She had a phone to her ear and I can only assume the person on the other end was being treated to the heady exchange as well.
The word “fuck” was bandied about creatively – used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective and even redundantly (as in, “You fucking, fuck who do you fucking think you fucking are?”). I was smiling to myself as I put the gas spigot into my tank, because the woman won the argument with great aplomb saying (before she got into the Toyota – phone still to her ear – and scratched off), “It’s MY FUCKING TRUCK!”
And so it goes.
While the gas was pumping into my tank, I walked to the store for water, still bemused by the little piece of street theater. I walked to my car, got in and drove away. You will recall the gas spigot was attached to my car, an inconvenience I remembered only when I heard the sickening sound of a gas hose being ripped from the Gate gas receptacle. The other patrons looked at me – their mouths were O’s of surprise. What a treat. First a class “A” screaming match and THEN a woman destroys an entire gas tank while sipping (ironically) Smart Water…
So, I got out of my car, removed the truncated gas tube and spigot from my tank, placed it neatly near the pump, and hightailed it out of there. I did a runner… Sober.
