I had to wait in line… behind a car

When we’re done and finally back in New Jersey, this road trip will have comprised around 2400 miles and 38 hours of driving. That’s a lot of time on the road and a ton of stops for gas. Back when I had a car, I was always paranoid about running out of gas, so I barely let the gauge go beneath a quarter of a tank. Why risk it? Well we made it our first 1200 miles without running out of gas, yet the other night we hit the beach, the outlets, dinner… and then empty. The entire day, I was leaning over to check the gas thinking hmm that is getting kinda low. We openly discussed adding it to the list of things to do, however I’m not quite sure why we didn’t make it more of a priority. We were literally 2 minutes from Meredith’s Dad’s apartment the other night and she announces that we have 4 miles to empty. With controlled panic, I ask where the gas stations are. She replies that they are at the end of this strip we’re on, which right now consists of nothing but marshland on either side, but she’s not sure how far that is in mileage… Super…

We’re going about 25 mph because Meredith claims that uses less gas, and still no gas stations in sight. At this point I cannot even look at Meredith because she can see the mileage display (which she later told me was on 0 miles to empty for a really long time), and if I could see her face, I would lose it. Instead I pulled my hood up over my face and began to hysterically laugh. The same uncontrollable hysterical laugh that came over me when I was on The Cyclone last summer and thought I was literally going to die. It’s the laugh that happens when you’re not sure whether you should be laughing or crying. Am I going to have to push this car? That is really not what I had in mind for my vacation. Could I even push a car? Then like out of a dream, a gas station appears on the right! I have never been happier to see one in my entire life. When they use the expression “running on fumes”… I now have a new appreciation for what that means…