So My Beloved and I go out early yesterday afternoon to fuel up the Soul, and we pull up behind another elderly couple attempting to also fuel up. Although there are easy to follow instructions on the pump screen, they decide to ignore those instructions and play the “Press Random Buttons Until Something Happens” game. After something randomly happens after a bit and the fuel turns on, the man takes the nozzle off the pump and locks it in the full open position…before unlocking the gas cap and inserting said nozzle. He lets the fuel spill out all over the place before finally getting the cap off, puts Nozzle A into gas hole B, and fuels up, wiping up absolutely nothing. We go across the street and fuel up for a few cents more, but not before telling a clerk at the first place what had happened.
We’ll all be there someday.
I feel sorry for the very elderly trying to navigate this world.
I would’ve gotten out and helped.
I hope I go out quickly before I lose my marbles. Unfortunately the only reliable way is to be converted to a fully ionized plasma in less than a nanosecond, before the nervous system can react.
Which probably implies an asteroid strike or a nuclear bomb… not fair to other people suffering the collateral damage…
Did they have NJ plates? In NJ it’s illegal to pump your own gas, and I think one other state. A little mind-blowing for me when I moved there.
You could build a carbon fibre submarine…
Indeed. I fear that an implant will provide PC gamers with an advantage with said games. This will be further developed into a computer OS, perhaps “Windows MT” and I will no longer be able to shop at Amazon or post on the ‘Dope.
“Windows Mental Telepathy”. ™
I offered, and was refused.
There are whole generations (mostly dead now) who were never expected to pump their own gas.
Oregon might be the other state you’re thinking of, but they decided to start allowing self-service gas in 2023. I grew up in Oregon, learning to drive in the early 1990s. My first out-of-state trip, to Washington, offered a bit of a challenge the first time I had to stop to feed my car. Thankfully, another customer noticed the Oregon plates and the confused expression on my face and very kindly showed me how to operate the pump.
Even in my early 20s, having grown up in a state that at the time did not allow self-service did cause me some minor difficulty when I went outside that state. If the described older couple had lived their whole lives in New Jersey, I can understand their difficulty, really. It is a little harder to understand if this was in another state well away from NJ, since anywhere else, one has to know how to pump gas to do much driving.
Oregon pumps, Washington State plates.
It is Oregon, they may have only put fuel in their car a couple times in their entire life. Just pour it all over and it is bound to soak in somewhere.
Again, Washington State plates.
This reminds me of when old people encounter touch screen soda refill machines and it completely breaks their brains and they can neither use them but also they can’t walk away.
Could be a borrowed car, a rental car, or some other reason they were unfamiliar with the procedure. But I don’t want to push back on your main point, and I agree, some people are clueless dangers.
The scary thing is not their experience at the pump, but that they are going to leave that pump and drive a massive car in traffic.
I just went through Oregon, and most stations seem to have dual self-service / full service pumps now.
Been that way for several years now. I liked having the full service when we lived there, especially in a driving rain storm.
If they had Washington plates, we already know they are an accident just waiting to happen. I saw more idiocy on the roads during my seven years living there than I have in the fifty I’ve spent in California.
Arkansas ranks high in the aged living here.
I try not to judge folks on their age.
But…I’m more afraid of the drivers in the University town I frequent. Those kids are crazy.
I find elderly drive slower and maybe get in turn lanes too soon. (They don’t Tap to pay at registers either, they move at a different pace)
I’d lot rather deal with that than young drivers speeding around a pretty small city and darting in and out of traffic lanes. They scare me.
A bit of spilled gas was more irritating to the person at the pump, not necessarily the onlookers. IMO
I feel the same way about my phone. Everyone else seems to be able to make it do things that I cannot. I have recently learned to text, but not at the speed people seem to be able to. And while I can make photos, I have never figured out how to get them off the phone. So I am sympathetic.
Oddly enough the place I usually buy gas at does not have self-serve. But I use them because they are such a reliable repair shop, so I will give them the business. Also, when it is -20 out I appreciate it. All other stations around here are self-serve only.
That they had trouble navigating through the pump menu doesn’t worry me. I saw a few pumps on my road trip through Washington and Oregon with some of the buttons in weird places. It was not knowing you stick the nozzle in the gas tank before turning on the pump.
I thought they had interlocks to prevent people from spraying gas all over the place.
When I first started to drive not only did they fill your tank but also checked your oil and cleaned your windshield. Plus free maps. And they wonder why we think things are going to hell.