Southern Hospitality

So I'm driving between Montgomery and Mobile and need to stop for gas. As I find out, there aren't a heck of a lot of stops between Montgomery and Mobile for gas, food, or Diet Coke. Given my ability to find a gas station on every corner in Atlanta where I can not only get gas but can also get the oil drum size of my preferred carbonated beverage, I become a bit concerned. But, the professional that I am, I also know I can drive about 60 miles with the little yellow light on before, as life experience as taught me, the little light goes off in conjunction with the rest of the car when I take my keys out of the ignition for a wee bit of an unscheduled hike to the nearest gas station.

Fortunately, I find a town which shall remain nameless least they become overrun with folks moving in due to my positive publicity about their hospitality and service and just in case I need to stop there again. The town appears to have not only one but two gas stations in close proximity to the freeway. I try the first but my gas card doesn't work there. So, I mosey on over to the second. Now, it is a work day and I'm dressed to impress as I'm calling on customers and know that looking capable is part of the game even if one doesn't have a clue what they are doing, again, learned from life experience. In fact, I believe that I invented the phrase, "Wow, great question. No one has ever asked me that before - can I get back to you?"

But, gas pumps are apparently not responsive to the looking capable ploy and, I now know, work a bit of global karma. Now, I do want to make it quite clear that I did apologize profusely last year when I drove away from a gas pump with the poor thing's arm still in my gas tank, causing the arm to sever and drag from my car until I got to the next red light and extracted it. But apparently an apology along with avoiding that gas station like the plague, no matter how I was dressed, just wasn't enough payment to the gas pump gods.

So, I pull up to the second station in this town, and professionally stick my company issued credit card in the pump to do that swipe thing. It goes in but then, oddly, it doesn't come out. I attempt to pull it out again. Nope. I try at least ten more times while I look around to see if there are any cameras. But no yanking on it will do. Just not happening. And, I figure I can't just go get a Big Gulp and leave as both my name and the name of my company are on that card despite the attractiveness of that option.

I go into the gas station and tell the young man working there that I seem to be having a problem with the gas pump. He ambles over to the pump and attempts to extract the card while we discuss him not ever having seen anything like it before and isn't it odd and amazing and so forth. I suggest we locate some pliers and he goes back into the station. Not having any, he calls for assistance.

When the Sheriff pulls up, I figure the card has been reported stolen, the pump is set up to keep it just like an ATM card and I'm cooked, suit or not. I'm appealing to the pump gods at this point but then find out he is just there to respond to the crisis. He ambles over and gives the pump a look. He attempts to extract the card but no luck. All three of us spend some time discussing how we have never seen anything like it, isn't it just the darndest thing, wouldn't have thought you could get your card stuck in a gas pump, sure is amazing and so on. After a bit, he goes to radio someone who can help and I'm left standing there trying to figure out if he has called for backup and I'm cooked for damaging property given that seems to be the crisis of the day in this town which, I am sure, is the safest place to live in the world.

Then, a guy in a pickup arrives. He ambles across the parking lot, wearing cowboy boots, a tool holster and a cap and, least I draw the wrong picture, pants and a shirt. I begin imaging the theme song that is always played in the movies when the cowboy enters the town to shoot the bad guy. I figure he isn't there to shoot the pump as the Sheriff could have already accomplished that which, of course, would have been neat but would have also indebted me to the gas pump gods for life for killing one of their clan. And, that's not to mention the insurance company that would clearly be after me for the cost of one gas station, at minimum. But, the theme song plays in my head anyway as I see him pulling a pair of pliers from the belt as he walks toward us, silhouetted by the sun, like all good heroes must be. He joins us at the pump and gives it a look. Then, he gives me a glance which somehow suggests that perhaps, just maybe, I'm not all that professional looking at the moment and, nope, he hasn't seen anything like it before. He reaches up and heroically pulls the card out of the pump's mouth with his pliers, holsters the tool and then speaks to us for the first time as he hands me my card when he states, "Here you go darlin, those little bumpy numbers are supposed to go on the bottom". He then holsters the pliers and disappears into the sunlight as he walks back to his truck to return to his lunch break. Now, how is that for service?

I can only say that I continue to be deeply humbled by the knowledge of how I personally brought a community together one nice, sunny day as they responded in unison to the crisis in their midst. It was a honor.