Hey Joey,
I want to tell you one more thing. I hope you will enjoy it.
When I was around 18, I was attending school but working in a gas station for the summer. One day, five minutes after closing time, a lady pulled in and asked if she could fill up her car. In most gas stations, at that time, (in the 1970s) the employees had several chores to do after closing. We had to take measurements of the amount of product sold etc. It would take at least 30 minutes after we were closed to do this.
I explained politely to the lady that we were closed and I couldn’t give her any gas.
She then went into her act. First she begged. Then she offered me a bribe (which almost worked but we had heard that the licensing commission used to hire private detectives to check on employees willing to take bribes and it wasn’t worth my job to take her two dollar bribe - two dollars was a lot more back then than it is today). Anyway, after begging and pleading and offering me a bribe, she went into a threatening mode. “If you don’t give me some gas, I will run out and then I’ll be stranded and my husband will have to come and help me and he will beat the snot out of you … etc.”
I’m coming to the point soon. But before I do, I just want to say that this lady was at the age where her looks were just beginning to fade. I got the impression that she was used to getting her way from men because for her entire life, she had been very attractive and it was only recently that her looks began to fade and she was very unhappy about that.
But, here is the point. I was a kind of snotty punk and I didn’t care what she said or did. I wasn’t going to sell her any gas or give it to her or pour it over her head and set her on fire. She was getting nothing from me. Nada! In fact, (here is the point), I had decided to use her for my own entertainment.
I decided to try and do everything I could to string her along and see just what she was capable of doing. The gas pumps were locked and she didn’t know where the key was and so she was just S.O.L.
I was really hoping that she would run out of gas while she was going through her act and that she would just lose her mind. I was hoping she would lose her mind because it would be a great story that I could then tell people for the rest of my life - just like I’m doing now.
Unfortunately, I think she figured out what I was doing and at that point, she just put the car into gear and left. But it would have been so glorious if she actually ran out of gas and got stuck there or if she did anytying that would give me cause to call the police. It was a different time and the police would have taken my side because I was an employee of a large company and I could smell a little alcohol on her breath.
Looking back, I should have been more charitable and explained my reasons to her. But at that time, I was just a young dumb prick and I didn’t give a shit. I worked hard all day and if there was any chance she was going to provide me with some entertainment to enjoy at the end of my day, I was all up for it.