subject: Fast Cars, Cheap Gas and Husbands [print this page] Maybe it's something to do with the mixture of testosterone in the brain and exhaust fumes in the sinuses, but anytime we get near a car, my sweet fairly normal husband turns into a raving lunatic.
No matter where we are going and why, it's like he can never get anywhere fast enough, and as soon as he arrives at his destination, he's already worrying about how quickly he can get home.
The other day my husband and I were driving back from the grocery store and he took an unexpected turn.
"Where are you going I asked?"
"I was looking at a map the other day," he said. "And I think, if we go this way, and hit the light just right, I can get us home at least a minute faster than the old way."
A minute? What possible difference can a minute make? It was a Saturday afternoon and we had nowhere to be. But this was serious business to my husband. Shaving off a whole minute of travel, a minute and fifteen seconds if he was lucky, was tantamount to winning the super bowl or having the greenest lawn in the neighborhood.
I find his little speed thing amusing when he is driving. However, if I'm behind the wheel it becomes the stuff wars are made of.
"Go, go, go, this light stays yellow for a long time," he shouts in my ear as I break for a signal.
I continue to slow down.
"What are you doing? You could have made it. That grey van next to us went through easily."
"But I don't want to," I said.
"What do you mean you don't want to?" a look of pure astonishment crossing his face. "You want to just sit here, staring at the light doing nothing for, I don't know, maybe a minute or two?"
I answer by turning up the radio. "I really like this song."
"This is why women will never achieve the same level of success as a man," he sputters. "They just don't know how to grab an opportunity when it comes."
I'm thinking about stress levels, heart attacks, high blood pressure and all those other manly diseases that are just now beginning to show up in women. Perhaps he has a point.
And what about gas? Okay, I know gas is very expensive these days, and like everyone else, our family is trying to conserve, but even so, what is the point of driving half way around town just to save three cents a gallon?
There's a station I like to go to. It's right on the way to the freeway, and it has these little TV sets installed into the pumps so you can watch a show while you pump your gas. The downside is that the gas runs anywhere between four to six cents higher than the cheapo place down the street.
If I'm driving alone, there isn't any problem. I get out, pump, watch TV and get back on the road. But if my husband is with me, the world comes apart.
"Don't use this station," he'll say as I pull into the turn lane, waiting for the light to change. "The gas is WAY over priced."
"But it's a nice place and it's close."
"Cheapo gas is just as nice, and it's only three blocks away. Paying these prices is like throwing money down the toilet."
"Like throwing how much money down the toilet?" I countered.
"Well, let's see" he said, pulling out his calculator. "If you're paying five cents more a gallon on average, and the car holds seventeen gallons of gas, that's eighty-five cents more."
I shrugged. "That doesn't seem like much."
"You have got to be kidding. That's around four dollars or so a month, and almost fifty dollars a year. Are you willing to throw fifty dollars a year down the toilet, just so you can watch a tiny TV for five minutes?"
He had a point, and in the name of marital harmony, I made a U turn and headed to Cheapo gas.
Later I went out and bought myself a fifty dollar bottle of perfume. I mean, if I'm going to save it anyway I just as well enjoy it right?
