Yesterday I’m driving across the bay to take my little niece home, she’s sleeping in the back and I suddenly notice the gas gauge is almost at E. This is a shock because I rely on my odometer to let me know when I need to fill up, so I rarely look at the gas gauge. Turns out the wife had reset the odometer for some obscure wifely reason. So, yikes, I don’t want to run out of gas on the freeway so I pull off at the next exit. The neighborhood’s pretty sketchy but I think, it’s okay, I’ve gotten lost here before. It’s true. I know this much – it’s not the way to the Oakland Zoo, and the onramp back to the freeway is right, right, oh good, it’s right there. I figure there’e bound to be a gas station nearby and sure enough there is one at the next light. I pull in and discover it’s the first gas station I’ve seen in ages that does not take credit cards, so I have to leave my little sleeping angel in the car while I go to the booth to pay the man. Of course, there’s a line. I wait. The guy in front of me says to the cashier (seated in his bullet-proof enclosure), “say, isn’t this the place where that guy was shot and killed the other day?“
Did I want to know that?
No.
The cashier nods and the man turns around and asks me, “did you know that? There was a guy who was shot and killed right here just the other day!”
Did I want to hear that again?
My turn comes. I give the guy a twenty, even though I know this means I will have to stop and fill up again before I head home. I rush back, she’s still asleep, I pump that gas all the time looking around for someone with a gun.
