Oh, what a tangled web we weave...

... when first we decide to drive on E.

Last night was one for the books. Feeling restless at 12:30 a.m. I decided to hit the gym and do a quick workout. The only gym open at that hour being the CCRB (Central Campus Recreation Building), I drove the three, maybe four, miles down there, parked, and went in. So far, so good.

About 30 minutes later, I was pretty exhausted. The previous night had worn me down pretty good, and I could only do a few strokes on the rowing machine, some weights, and a little yoga before I starting getting visions of a soft comfy bed. I finished up and slothed my way back to my car.

Sitting there in the breathless quiet of the cold and dark, I turned the ignition.

Rrroww--rrroww--bzzz!

Son of a ..., I thought and tried again.

Rrroww--rrroww--bzzz!

I repeated this exercise another half-dozen times before the truth hit me: It was 1:45 a.m. and I was out of gas. I looked at the looming Mosher-Jordan dorms to my right, cursed myself a few more times, and tried to think what to do next.

Several options came to mind:

(A) Put the car in neutral, steer past the car parked downhill and in front of me, and try starting the car again once it was level. From experience I knew the car sometimes didn't start if it was low on gas (but not out) and parked on an incline. But somehow this plan -- which I gave a 30% chance of working at best -- didn't seem worth the risk of careening out of control, over the curb, and into the nearest building, probably taking out a pedestrian or two in the process.

(B) Leave the car there until morning when I could take a bus to Meijer and buy a gas can and gas. The meter was set to be enforced at 8 a.m. City buses started running at 6:30 a.m. By the time I walked home, it would probably be 3 a.m. Or I could sleep in the lab for a few hours. I gave this plan -- whose timing ran tighter and tighter the more I thought about it -- a 20% chance of working.

(C) Call up one of my friends and have him either give me a ride home or take me to Meijer. I'd obviously owe someone big, but at least the probability of this working was near 100%.

In the end I called up CS who's a bit unpredictable sometimes but always good in a pinch. (I know you're reading this, CS!) He also lives fairly close to Central Campus. Just as I'd hoped, CS agreed to pick me up and arrived 15 minutes later.

As we made our way to the nearest Meijer, I tried to make light of the situation. I don't remember exactly what I said, but I remember not wanting to make myself look like more of an ass than I already felt. Going down State Street en route to our destination, CS suddenly took a hard left into the parking lot of a gas station. "Check if they have gas cans." Stroke of luck: they did. A few minutes later I was the proud owner of one gas can -- a flimsy red plastic thing, really -- and a gallon of Shell Regular Unleaded. We headed back up State Street.

It soon became apparent something was wrong. Fumes started filling the interior of CS' car, and he turned the air on full blast. In the dark I reached down and picked the gas can off the floor: A glistening shine indicated gas was spilling out the top as if there wasn't a top at all. CS started freaking out and rolling all the windows down.

Despite our best efforts we were soon feeling the intoxicating effects of petroleum fumes and laughing at the stupidest things. One thing in particular seemed really funny: the possibility that a small spark inside the car cabin might end our extended grad school careers. In our imaginations our bodies would be charred beyond recognition as a grand explosion sent pieces of twisted Passat everywhere. I thought I might have just enough time to get out my cell phone, snap a pic, and post it to my blog. And then we joked that if we were really lucky, I might have just enough time to throw the flaming canister out the window, in the process Molotov-cocktailing some hapless mom-and-pop business on the side of State Street. CS seemed to enjoy this crazy talk but sped up anyway.

Long story short, we made it back to my car and I deposited the hard-won gallon into my tank. The only lasting side effect was the smell of gasoline everywhere: on my clothes, in my skin, and up my nostrils. I'd heard you shouldn't drive in the wintertime on less than half a tank, and it was now clear why -- because plastic gas cans are shoddily made and you'll be freezing your ass off as your friend drives with all the windows down to stop the onslaught of fumes. Let this be a lesson to all of you.

And, by the way, the E in the first line of this post: That's "empty" and not the other kind of "E".