So my wife has just made the best $20 investment of our lives. It’s a battery powered gas siphon. (Yes my other job, siphoning gas at $4 a gallon during evening hours is booming) No, we actually have a small gas powered boat on a small lake where you need to manually fill up by the 7-gallon gas can…a royal pain in the CAN. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thrown my back out holding 7 gallons of gas in the same position, trying not to spill it into the lake. You need the funnel, which won’t stay in position, hope that the nozzle on the can is on tight, and you inevitably wind up smelling like a gasy mess. It’s miserable.
But now we have this new gizmo that looks like a roll of quarters with a tube extending from either side of it. You put one end in the gas can and the other end in the boat tank, move the small switch from off to “ON” and in a matter of two minutes, 7 gallons of gas is now in your boat with no back pain or gas smell. I have a new favorite toy. Well that’s how it would work if you weren’t … me.
Nope, I can’t let well enough alone. My wife shows me how to use it, we empty two cans of gas into the boat and life is good…that’s going to end shortly. My wife heads back to the house, and I begin to put the cans away. I notice there’s about a ¼ of an inch of gas left in the bottom of each can…the siphon could not get to it. Naturally because I’m as anal as they come, I come up with an absolutely brilliant idea. I’ll pour the remaining gas from one can into the other and I’ll just pour that small amount back into the boat. I opt not to walk to the shed for the funnel…too much of a bother. Instead, I’ll just extend the 6 inch plastic nozzle into the gas tank of the boat. It’s very light and I finish the job quickly. As I’m pulling the nozzle out of the boat, I notice gas spilling over the side of the boat. Now with a sense of urgency, I pull the plastic nozzle out quickly to limit the spillage. I'm a good egg.
Unfortunately, I did not size up this situation very well. As I pulled the plastic, bend-able nozzle out of the boat it got caught on the gas cap. When it finally releases, the hose flexes and with unbelievable spring-action shoots what seemed like two quarts of gasoline into my face…including my eyes. You know how they say right before you die your life passes before you? Well that didn’t happen to me, but I actually did see the gas coming at me at about Mach 9…that is until it went into my eyes. (The only thing that could have been better is if I’d had a lit cigarette in the corner of my mouth.)
Now I’m pin-balling off the dock. I stumble onto a beach, drop the gas can and fall into the lake. I stop for a split second and think to myself, do I really want to get my clothes wet. That decision is quickly made for me as the searing pain in one of my eyes forces me underwater. The pain is excruciating, it feels like someone has thrown gasoline into my eyes…Oh yeah Einstein, that was you!
I open my eyes under water and let in the murky brown, particle-filled fluid to flush my eyes. I do this multiple times, all the while thinking, if my corneas are not burned out, I’ll definitely have some deadly bacteria growing in there shortly.
There is a “pre-quel “ to this story – When I was 21, and extremely bright, my friends and I were taking a trip to the Jersey Shore. It was during the gas crisis around 1980. We were siphoning gas from multiple cars to put into mine for the trip. When the siphon stopped working, I decided to try sucking on the hose to get the gas moving again. (Did I mention that I graduated from college with honors)
To make a long story short, I swallowed a large mouth full of gasoline…leaded.
I won’t go into details about what I was like for the rest of the weekend; but the phrase, “Light One Up” has forever had new meaning for my close friends.
