Gas Station Carnival

This story takes place on a trip out of Atlanta, Georgia up to Ashville, North Carolina.  My wife Sue and I had flown into Atlanta to visit family and had rented a car at the airport.  After visiting our Georgia family we headed north to see the Biltmore House.  Since this was a sightseeing vacation we took the infamous “scenic route”. 

We left Atlanta on 85 and eventually picked up 441 northbound through the Blue Ridge mountains.    This route also takes you through some really small towns.  Since we are now off of the major interstate system we have to be careful to keep an eye on the gas gauge.   Our selected rental car was probably getting a whopping 18 miles per gallon which was not unusual in the 1980’s.

Running out of gas in the mountains is not a real good idea.  You can’t always plan to run out while you can still coast into that gas station at the bottom of a hill.  It is also scary for other reasons.  It is a fact that if you roll down the windows and turn off the radio you can faintly hear the dueling banjo music in the distance.  The movie Deliverance was to mountain driving what Jaws was to ocean swimming.  The point of all of this is that while driving in the mountains I treat the half-full mark on the fuel gauge like empty.

On this stretch of the trip however I was enjoying the scenery so much I forgot how I am supposed to drive and looked down to see that I had but a quarter of a tank left.  We checked our paper maps and found that we were not far from a small blip of a town whose name I don’t really remember.

We hoped that we could find a gas station.  When we rounded the two hundred and ninety third curve since discovering our gas predicament we realized that it would have been impossible to miss this gas station.  You see they just opened this brand new gas station/convenience store and it was the biggest event to reach this area since Jesse Helms came through on a campaign tour looking to get re-elected for the fifth time.  They had a bounce house for the kids and a veritable carnival of stuff for everybody else.  There were those brightly colored triangle flags flapping from ropes tied to every vertical support they could find.  The place was packed with the twenty-eight residents of this town, thirty-four residents of other neighboring towns and two tourists from Florida who needed gas.

We filled our tank and I decided to pick up a few goodies for the remainder of our trip to Ashville.  I’m sure back then it involved Good ‘n Plenty’s.  It is just about as hard to travel without gas as it is to travel without Good ‘n Plenty’s.  I moved the car to the front of the convenience store part of the gas station and joined the crowd inside.  Sue elected to wait in the car so I left the engine running to provide her with AC.

I found the shelf with Good ‘n Plenty’s and grabbed an extra-large box.  I then began to peruse the rest of the snack offerings when I was shocked to turn and see someone I knew.  It was my wife, Sue.  She had decided to see if the snack shelves held any of her favorites.  We both made our selections and meandered our way to the cash register.  I paid the bill and we both returned to the car.  All was well until I saw Sue’s face after asking her to hand me the car keys.  It wasn’t that reassuring look of, wait a minute I think they are here in my purse.  It was that look that says, what the Hell are you talking about?

I looked around and quickly found the keys.  They were hanging where they belonged in the ignition.  The engine was running and the windows were rolled up and the AC was keeping the car at a cool 72 degrees.  The problem came with a special feature of the car in that it assumes under those conditions that you want all of the doors locked.  I didn’t want this feature, didn’t ask for this feature but the car manufacturer thought I needed it.

We are standing outside our locked idling rental car, with a full tank of gas, many miles from what I like to call civilization, with our comfort food snacks in paper sacks and now feeling like we were quickly becoming the center of attention.  I looked up to see that this latter feeling was in fact reality and not just a feeling.  Something new had been added to the carnival atmosphere in that two bumpkins from Florida had locked themselves outside their rental car.  Luckily most of them hadn’t realized that the car was also running, as this would have been almost too much for them to contain without laughter.

A few bystanders offered suggestions about how to get into the car.  I quickly found out that the nearest coat hanger was probably back in Atlanta.  The most common question was, why did you lock your car?

I headed to a phone booth and found a new phone book for the town and surrounding area.  It was at least fifteen pages in length.  I tried to find a locksmith but since nobody locks their doors up here locksmiths tend to starve to death.  I called information and had them connect me with the rental car company’s help line.  As usual they were no help.

I then went into the convenience store and asked the cashier for advice.  She suggested that I call the Sheriff.  I gave her that look dogs sometimes give when their masters make a funny sound.  She assured me that he could probably help.  In my head I could just hear Andy Taylor telling Barney Fife about the two stupid stranded motorists from Florida.  As I was completely out of options I made the call to the sheriff’s office.  They said he would be by shortly.

About fifteen minutes later a patrol car pulled up and parked behind my car.  A rather professional patrolman exited.  He seemed to relish my explanation about what had happened.  It was somewhat amusing, if you weren’t me.  He then went to his trunk and pulled out a “Slim Jim”.  They had these in the gas station convenience store snack shelf but theirs were made of flavored rawhide.  His was the metal kind used to open car doors when idiots from Florida lock themselves out.

It took several attempts.  He first tried the driver’s door then the passenger side.  Both times the car won the battle.  He looked like he might abandon the whole approach when he decided to try the driver’s side door again.  The door opened after a couple of tugs.

It was here that I wasn’t sure of what to do.  In Miami you would just fold up a twenty-dollar bill and slip it to the patrolman with your thanks.  Here in the mountains things were obviously different.  I decided to open my wallet and ask to make a contribution to the local police fund.  I got the puzzled look and then a polite refusal.  So, either they don’t take “donations” in North Carolina or there were too many people watching.  In either case I couldn’t offer him anything for his assistance.

I then just did the polite thing and extended my hand in thanks.  He reached up to shake my hand and once our hands were shaking I went berserk.  I hollered, jerked, and looked like a mental case from Florida.  Now there were some really puzzled onlookers including one cop and my wife.  What nobody but me knew was that at the very moment he went to shake my hand a yellow jacket wasp flew in to our just clasping hands and proceeded to sting the bejesus out of me.  

After I finally extricated my hand from our “friendly” shake and stopped yelling I tried to offer an explanation.  It wasn’t until I finally spotted a slightly crumpled yellow jacket on the ground that I was able to make anyone understand.  I pointed to the soon to be stomped on insect lying on the ground.  I then held out my hand to show the stinger still protruding from my palm.  He said I ought to put something on the sting but, more painful than the sting was the humiliation and embarrassment I felt.

The patrol car was eventually moved and I put as much distance as possible between myself and the gas station carnival.  I can imagine one of the onlookers today sitting on a porch overlooking a North Carolina mountain saying to a family member, “Do you remember that idiot from Georgia who locked himself out of his car and went nuts when he shook that cop’s hand?”  By way of explanation, the rental car had Georgia tags.  There are already enough embarrassing Florida stories to go around.

If you look up yellow jacket wasps you will find that only the females will sting so I had a 50-50 chance of this story ending about four paragraphs ago.  You will also find that yellow jackets are known by one peculiarity in that they have a side-to-side flight pattern just before landing. They also typically sting multiple times to maximize the agony.  I think I was touring the second floor of The Biltmore when the throbbing stopped.