Nothing But Love :: golf blogger

In any event, I got near the car and two guys were standing behind it, one with a shopping cart full of blue bags and assorted boxes that didn't fit in blue bags, the other empty-handed. As I got closer, the empty-handed guy with a red baseball cap, blond hair sticking out at odd angles, and a drooping blond mustache, was doing the talking, explaining to the guy with the cart, who blocked my exit, that gas stations didn't lend out gas cans anymore.

He said that it was ridiculous, especially at this time of year, "the time when charity toward all is supreme," for the gas station owners not to trust people to bring back gas cans.

He said that gas stations were not the same anymore and that gas stations wanted to make a dollar off of people's misfortunes and charge $4.99 for gas cans.

The guy with the shopping cart was nodding and said that it was a terrible state of affairs, especially when Halliburton was raping the government with the gas prices it was charging in Iraq -- well, maybe not the last part, but he meant to say it, I know he did. He had that look about him, but the empty-handed guy in the red baseball cap and white hooded sweatshirt interrupted him.

I was getting into the car at that point, and the empty-handed guy with the red baseball cap and dirty blue jeans said that he couldn't buy anty gas if he bought the gas can. I slid into the seat and looked in the rear view mirror. The guy with the cart had some paper money out and was counting out one-dollar bills. I don't know how many, probably five. He gave the one-dollar bills to the empty-handed guy with the red baseball cap and fingerless ragg-wool gloves, who vigorously pumped the guy with the shopping cart's hand.

I count myself as one of the few experts in this area, that is, running out of gas and having to buy gas cans from the gas station. I have four of them in the garage -- well, three, now. I lent one to the neighbor across the street, and he never returned it.

I have four of them -- well, three now -- because I had to get gas cans on four of the seven times I ran out of gas. The last time I bought the gas can for $2.49 (admittedly, the cheaper model) at Speedway (or Starvin' Marvin's, I can't remember what they call it). The same kind of gas station, a franchise operation, can be found right across the road from the shopping center. I doubt that the price of gas cans has doubled there in the last year or so. After all, I haven't run out of gas lately, so the demand is way down.

I would say that the guy with the shopping cart full of blue bags has little or no expertise in this field and that he had been unfairly taken advantage of. The empty-handed guy with the red baseball hat went off in a southerly direction and the guy with the shopping cart full of blue bags went off to the north.