Art of the Odd

I volunteered yesterday to help out at the VES Motion Capture event. I was supposed to be there at 5, but I had that one last thing to finish up first. You know that one last thing – the thing that you absolutely have to get done before you can leave work, that always winds up taking far longer than you thought it would? Yeah. That thing. So instead of leaving at 4:30 and maybe having time to wash my car, I left at 5. (Actually, since the do was at Sony, and Sony’s only three and half miles away, I did think, “If I leave at 4:30, I could ride my bike,” but then I realized I’d be coming home after dark (and lack the proper equipment to ride at night), and there’s no room in NovySan’s Bug for my bicycle. At any rate, I left too late for that to have been a viable option.)

So, I went out to my car, half an hour later than I had intended, turned the key, and glanced at the gas gauge. My gas gauge does tend to be a bit flaky (there’s a reason I carry a jerry can in the boot), but there was definitely something wrong. I filled up Saturday morning, just before driving to Topanga for class, and I haven’t driven it since then. So either I’m now getting 3 miles to the gallon, or I’m missing about 7 gallons of gas.

“Maybe I didn’t fill up on Saturday,” I thought. When you drive so seldom, it’s easy to lose track. “Well, fine. I should have enough to get to the gas station.”

I didn’t.

It died in the middle of a five-point intersection.

As to the people who swerved around me while I pushed it to the curb – well, at least they didn’t honk. (Seriously, people – I realize I’m no fragile flower, but you see a lone woman pushing her own damned car, and you can’t be bothered to stop? Or even ask if she’d like you to?)

The aforementioned jerry can being almost empty (due to a previous incident with the aforementioned flaky gas gauge, and me being in a hurry the last few times I’ve filled up), I drained the dregs into the tank and prepared to see whether it would be enough to get me to the gas station. Meanwhile, I called Novy and asked him to let the organizers know I was on the way. “You’re out of gas?” he asked. “Totally out,” I said, and it began to dawn on me what that meant.

As I put the now completely-empty can back in the boot (after an heroic struggle with the nozzle – the spring kept flinging itself into the gutter), a white van stopped across the street. I heard the words whose absence had echoed while I pushed the car out of the intersection. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” I said. “I’ve just run out of gas.”

“Can I give you a ride to the gas station?” he asked.

I know a lot of people would have hesitated. I didn’t.

“That would be lovely,” I said.

And then he said, “Wait, I think I have some gas in here.”

He did. A whole gallon. And he wouldn’t let me pay him for it.

“The van runs on veggie oil,” he told me. “So do my two Mercedes sedans, and my other van. I’ve got a work truck that takes gas, and my ’63 Comet. I learn something new every time I convert one of them, so I keep buying more cars. A lot of my machines for work take gas, though, mixed with oil, but I haven’t mixed the oil into this one yet. With the price of gas,” he said, “I guess a lot of people aren’t filling their tanks up all the way.”

“I did,” I told him. “On Saturday. And I haven’t driven anywhere since then.”

“Oh,” he said. “You should get a locking gas cap.”

Novy agreed. He ordered two this morning.

The gasoline saga wasn’t quite over, though. After the event, I went to the parking garage to find a pool of gasoline under the back of my car. I popped open the engine cover to discover that the hose leading into the fuel filter was so loose, there was gas dripping from it. I jammed it back together and thought, “Maybe someone didn’t siphon my gas. Maybe it just dripped out.” But then I thought, “There’s no way seven or eight gallons of gasoline dripped into the driveway without any of the four people who live in my house noticing.”

So we’re still buying the locking gas caps. And replacing that hose this weekend.

Yesterday, my neighbor told me that his wife chased someone off our porch a few weeks ago. He was a high school kid. At around the same time, he said, she saw a high-school-age girl hop out of a truck in front of their house, pee on their lawn (which struck me as funny, since it’s Astroturf) and jump back in the truck.

“Things have been quiet since school got out,” he said, “but I figured you’d want to know.”

I thanked him, and then he said there’s a guy who works somewhere in the neighborhood, who always parks on our street and likes to eat his lunch in his car. “I’m going to ask him to keep an eye out,” he said. “He knows what all of us look like, so he’ll notice if there’s someone around who shouldn’t be.”

I have no idea who this guy is.

He sits out there almost every day, eating his lunch, and I’ve never noticed him.

It’s not that I think there’s anything wrong with him.

I’m sure he’s a very nice man.

But this morning I realized that if someone were out there casing my house – I might never notice.

I should probably go outside more often.