if you're bored, you're not paying attention

Coasting in.

Driving home last night, stop-and-go traffic on the 101, gas gauge pegged to E, I finally ran out of gas about half a mile short of my exit. Restarted the truck and made it as far as the exit, then a couple blocks up Poplar, before the truck ran out of gas again while I was waiting at the light. Restarted it the second the light turned green, gunned through a right hand turn and up the little hill on Delaware — up up up, hang on there, don’t die on me yet — until the engine coughed and died just as I crested the rise. I punched the clutch in and coasted another block, wrenched the steering wheel around to pull into the parking lot, coasted along another fifty feet, and then made a final, careful right turn to roll slowly, just as the truck ran out of its last bit of momentum, into the gas station.

2 Comments

  1. David Jensen

    You are a pretty lucky fellow. Can You say, Check the gauges before you engage the clutch.

  2. Bill Higginson

    Don’t try that in a Prius! But then, in a Prius, you’d have had room to go another hundred miles or more before you hit the gas station.

    (The Toyota folks say you’ll damage the system if you fail to keep at least 1/8th of a tank aboard. I don’t feel like testing that one!)

    Bless!

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