On political parties

It's a used car, not new, but it's our new car, as distinguished from our old Subaru. This one is a cherry red Buick, and it's become Barb's car. She's the one who drives it.

And she'd warned me: "there's not much gas in the Buick." Her warning stuck. I knew. What's worse, new cars won't let you forget: signs with warnings appear all over. What I'm saying is, I knew the Buick was low on gas; I'd checked the gauge myself. But the needle hadn't sunk to no-man's land so I figured I could get up on top the hill, hardly a half mile away.

And let me just say this. I have no idea if it's still a good idea or not, but the warning is there, permanently, in my mind. "Ya' should, really, run a new car out of gas so you know where the needle means it when it points below the E." I didn't make that up. It's the kind of thing that seeps into your psyche when you're flashing your first driver's license--KNOW when and where you'd better believe the needle!"

I didn't. I ran out. Well, the Buick ran out. 

At least it was in a convenient spot, an empty parking lot beneath a housing development that's not there yet--thankfully, in no one's way. 

Let me begin by saying this. We live in senior housing, a place where everything outside the condo is managed, which means I got rid of every last lawn implement before we moved here. Hence, I've got no gas can. 

I'm out of gas--sure--but I'm also shit out of luck, as we used to say.

"Go to WalMart," I tell myself. (We've got two cars.) "Buy a new gas can, stop at Coop or Casey's or wherever, fill up that new gas can, get back here to the useless Buick at the top of the hill. No sweat, and you can always use a gas can."

My dad used to start the charcoal out back by splashing a little gas over the coals before dropping a match. Not until one of my friends saw him do it, did I think of what he was doing as risky. 

The one I grabbed off the shelf is a gas can, all red, cherry-red and round, but it's affixed with a spout that, for the life of me I can't operate. I'm an old man. I've been lighting charcoal fires for more than a half century, never with gasoline. I mean, I know there's danger; but this brand new gas can features safety apparatus which appears to be dysfunctional. I can't get the dumb thing to open the spout. It's obvious that it's there on the spout for safety sake. I get that. I can't lug a gallon of gas back to the Buick because I can't operate the gas can--are you kidding me? I can't do it.

 I put gas in the can by removing the whole spout and pumping a gallon in at the Coop, but when we get back to the Buick (now my suffering spouse of 54 years is here too), I can't get that gallon into the thirsty Buick because I can't operate the doohickey on the spout of the bright new gas can.

And neither can Barb, who's far more mechanically-inclined than her writer/husband, and neither can some other retired guy who's just arrived up on the hill to get his early afternoon walk in. I recruit him to try, offer him a kind of 'good Samaritan" thing. 

Some words were spoken that shouldn't have been--not as many as I uttered in London a decade ago when driving from the left side of the car was just as confounding as figuring out what on earth a roundabout was when you're in it. 

Frustration, sheer frustration creates a climate in which a few naughty words are tolerated, I think--or hope. 

We take the Subaru back to Coop, where Marv smiles befriendingly and lends us a great black funnel, which means we get the Buick going again.

But that blasted doohicky still pisses me off because it won. 

Now I'm normally proud to be a Democrat, even though as such I'm hen's teeth in the neighborhood. I can guess at the story of that doohickey on the gas can's spout. Some Democrats determined that a gas can without some safety mechanism risked bodily injury and even death, turning people like my dad, years ago, into a pillar of flame. "So let's just create a safety feature and make it mandatory on every gas can sold in this country," some lousy do-gooder told his lib buddies.

The whole story makes me think seriously about wandering over to the Republicans, where, rest assured, they're all as angry as I am about too many gal-durn safety regulations.

Anybody need a gas can? Used only once. . .