Memories

The other day I seen a commercial on TV that had me in stitches and brought back memories. It's a car commercial, I think for Toyota. A woman pulls up at a gas station and is waiting for the car in front of her to finish. The car in front of her suddenly takes off with the gas hose still in her gas tank. The gas pump gets ripped out and is dragged behind the car and hits what I believe is a propane tank and explodes. The minute I seen the car take off with gas hose still attached I thought of my dear mom. As you see back in the 70's my mom, my sister-in-law and I went camping. My mom had a little pop-up trailer that she would pull behind her 1975 Chevy Nova. We were on our way to Arkansas, and my mom stopped in Mount Vernon, IL for gas. This was back in the days of full service stations. She pulled up to the gas pump and a young fellow came out and asked her what she wanted. She told him to fill it. We used the restroom while he pumped the gas. Once back in the car, the young fellow came to the car window and told my mom what she owed for the gas. My mom paid him, thanked him and gave him a tip. He told her thank you and have a nice day as he walked back inside. My mom preceeded to pull away from the pump. Slowly, as she didn't want to scrape the trailer on the pump curb. All of a sudden we hear a scraping noise. She tells me to look and see what she is rubbing against. I am in the back seat, so I look out all the back windows and tell her she isn't rubbing against anything. She asked me if I was sure, I looked again and still didn't see anything wrong. She had plenty of room away from the pump curb. I told her she was ok and she eased out more. We again heard the noise and my mom hit the brakes and we all started looking for what was making the noise just in time to see the gas pump fall over with a huge CRASH!! I will never forget seeing the gas bubbling and gushing up and the gas station attendents running around like chickens with their heads cut off. The older man was yelling to get to the emergency shut off. The gas filler neck was behind the license plate and we couldn't see that the hose was still attached. Apparently the license plate bracket had kept the hose from just falling out of the car. We just sat in the car in disbelief until the older man decided to start screaming at my mom. He was screaming not so very nice words either. He wanted to know what in the hell my mom thought she was doing. My mom, when she was able to get a word in edgewise, explained that the young fellow came and collected her money for the gas and told her to have a nice day and that he went back inside. She told the angry man that it wasn't her fault. He took my money and left. Wouldn't you take it that he had taken the hose out if it had been you? The angry man asked my mom, he took your money? My mom once again told him yes he did and he told me to have a nice day. He apoligized to my mom, who by this time was a nervous wreck. He turned to the young fellow that had pumped the gas and yelled....YOU'RE FIRED!!! GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!...and a few other choice words....We left and continued on our trip, although for some reason my mom felt bad because the young fellow had lost his job, it wasn't her fault, but she felt bad anyway because that was the type of person she was.