Somebody Else's Problem.

Yes, before anyone self-appoints themselves Monumentally Clever Person, that's a HHGTTG reference.

It's five minutes past closing on a Wednesday night. I see three collegians pushing a dark green Ford Explorer toward the pumps, trudging slowly, step-by-step forward, like Arab traders leading a camel into a desert wind. The pumps are off, of course; their arrival hither is bound to be disappointing. I am typically prescient about where that disappointment is going to be vented. I am the Gas Guy, after all.

I watch them stare disbelievingly at blank gauges on the pumps as they jab and prod the fuel grade buttons and fumble with the nozzle beneath our unlit pavillion. I listen to my register buzzing happily as it spits out the end of the night reports. I am counting my drawer and waiting for their card-house of denial to topple, its remnants blown by the wind toward my locked and bolted door. I stand in my citadel, the Tai Chi Ch'uan master surrounded by enemies, awaiting the first strike that I may begin the lesson. They're not only going to learn why they're wrong, they're going to learn it on my schedule.

It comes. One of the collegians, a well-kempt frat-looking fellow (as are they all) approaches and tugs desperately at the pull handles, feigning (or perhaps worse, actually feeling) surprise when the do not yield. He gives me a look of thwarted ambition, impotence--futility. It's the kind of look that inspires pity and amusement toward children and pets when you've given them a challenge beyond their abilities. It elicits derision and disgust toward adults.

"Hey" frat unit A implores, knocking on the plexiglass window that seperates us, "our friend ran out of gas, and the pump won't take his credit card."

"That's because we're closed, and the pumps are shut off until tomorrow," I shout, because plexiglass absorbs a lot of noise. "There's nothing I can do for you." I am wondering which of the usual semaphore-flag indicators of closed-business status they overlooked most effectively. Was it the absence of any other vehicles? Maybe the pavillion lights being off? The darkened interior of the store, perhaps? That it took the above plus pumps lacking electricity, a locked door, and me telling them to send the point home makes me pray silently that these are not criminology majors. Yep, guy standing and counting money equals establishment open for commerce: there's the logic of desperation, in all of its finery.

"Thanks," he snorts sarcastically, as he storms back to the truck like the proverbial scorned woman. Sure enough, this is my fault. Score another one for the Gas Guy's Crystal Ball™. By the look of A's slightly puffy eyes, by the way, these guys have been drinking, which makes me decidedly unsympathetic. Hate away, my frat boys.

If my collegiate friends here were in any danger, I might be a little more inclined to help. I go through, like most people, a partially conscious checklist when evaluating candidates for aid: Are these guys safely off the road and out of the way of traffic? Check. Do they have recourse to assistance? Judging by the fact that all three are now yammering on cell phones, check. Is it hazardous for them to be outside? No, it's a pleasant evening and I walk home through this neigborhood alone nightly. Is there a well-known organization called triple-A, which specifically addresses and rectifies situations of driver negligence and idiocy? Check. Finally was this actual bad luck, or just somebody not paying attention? Extra-bold check on the latter. There are probably at least 30 gas stations within a five mile radius, and I would bet their souls that they passed five of them with the needle of a freakin'Ford Explorer on "E." It's not quite as thirsty as, say, an H2 in terms of fuel economy, but it's hardly a Geo Metro either. I conclude that my heart is not, in fact, breaking.

I was in a very similar situation once, as my empty-tanked Toyota Corona bucked and wheezed into a BP station that closed two hours earlier than the one I work in now--ten minutes before I got there. The clerk wouldn't turn the pumps back on, rerun his reports, and recount all of his money just to accomodate my faux pas. Having no coins for the pay phone, no cell phone, and no collect call access to my land-lineless erstwhile roommate, I walked three miles across gangsta-infested urbania in the dark to get home. Although it never hurts to ask, I held no grudge against the station attendant for not reordering his evening around my poor choice. As I trugded home, I envisioned a yellow flag attached to a steel bit flying through the air, followed by a referee's miked voice: We have a foul on the play: stupidity--offense. That's a three-mile walk home through the ghetto penalty and repeat second down.

But the guys aren't done appealing my decision. "C'mon can't you turn the pumps back on for a minute?" vociferates frat unit B, ostensibly believing that with an identical tone and request, he's going to get farther along than A did.

"They shut off automatically at close and restart in the morning," I yell back. Instead of a prevarication, I like to think of this statement as a personal redefinition of the word "automatic." Today it means "operated by breaker switches flipped by human fingers." I repeat that "there's nothing I can do. Sorry." B slinks away, vanquished by the iron-clad consistency of my argument.

I can turn the pumps back on, of course, but doing so involves re-booting the POS system, starting another business day, and retotalling everything. I'm not sure how to go about it, it would take forever, and would probably get me fired. While that may happen one day anyway, it will be a down-in-a-blaze-of-glory, my-terms kind of getting fired, and not falling on a grenade for some snotty kids who probably couldn't be bothered to say "thanks."

But the hitherto-silent unit C, the actual owner of the vehicle, approaches. I can't wait for his boldly divergent tack. His query arrives: "Why don't you guys leave the pumps on at night, so people can use their credit cards?" It's a good question, as I've seen stations that do just that, but strangely theoretical and not terribly germane to his current dilemma. I wonder why on earth he wants to debate something with me that can't help him at present. It's not like I can make a phone call and spontaneously change company policy.

"Because if something goes wrong with the machines, there'd be no one here to assist the customers," I reply, pleased with the reasonable-sounding improv. C, apparently at last realizing that having different lawyers come before the same appellate judge is getting the same answer, retreats to the Explorer.

I formulate a better answer, as often happens, after he leaves: because that would be underestimating human stupidity. "Never underestimate human stupidity" is beyond an aphorism, it is an axiom, containing the better part of all self-evident truth necessary for operating commercial industry. The irony of letting the same people who can't keep their cars, which have well-lit, prominent fuel gauges, from running out of gas operate pumps unattended is clearly lost on C. I can just imagine the chaos of leaving machines unsupervised which accept money and dispense flammable liquids--in the wee hours of the morning, when most users would be intoxicated. I would come to work one day, to find the area that had once been the fuel pavillion a scorched crater, while the rabble from the Glen picked through the smoldering wreckage of my little shop searching for intact menthol cigarettes and unpunctured cans of Steele Reserve, with the ardor of rescue workers at NYC ground zero. And I don't want to see that.

I go to the back to put the money away and restock the beer. When I return, the frat guys and the Explorer are gone. I conclude that the situation was not so dire as they protested, and that I was correct to assume that they could navigate it with no extraordinary assistance from me.

A little tough love goes a long way.