The Gallerita!

First of all I want

First of all I want to say that I did not quite trust J's (he refuses to tell me what the J stands for) paranoia about how quickly the vehicle we have been using drinks the gas. Almost everytime we pass a gas station he wants to stop and put more in. Today, we finish our work in Cisco Tx. We had planned to leave Cisco at 3:30pm to get back to Fort Worth by 5:30. I glance at my watch and it read 3:15. We ceased our work and began cleaning up and packing our tools for the day. We did not finish til 3:50pm. Anyway, we were heading east on I20, talking about whatever and I glanced at the fuel gauge and it indicated 1/4 tank remained. J noticed and more than likely thought to himself, "hey, we need gas" I think I saw a bead of sweat appear on his brow at that very moment...but, we started talking about whatever again and completely ignored the fuel gauge. It seemed a very short time later, I rechecked the gauge and the indicator was gone...it had disappeared in the dash and I believe we were continuing down the road on divine intervention. J noticed the gauge too and he tensed and became almost giddy. I asked him if he had ever run out of gas in this truck and he said he had not. We figured we had 13 miles to the next gas station which would equate to almost 2 gallons of gas. We both said, "maybe". Or then, maybe not...within a minute J said "uh oh" and the truck began slowing down. We were almost over a ridge to the next hill and hoped once we topped the ridge we would see a mobil, texaco or conoco, but no, we saw a Diamond Shamrock, one of the few stations that SWB no longer does business with. So we continued, hoping to get to a preferred gas station. In retrospect, we should have stopped there and put a few coins of gas in the tank because it was less than a minute later that we sputtered to a stop. We sat for a moment and J tried turning the key...miraculously the engine started and we continued on our trip to the nearest gas station. After about 1/2 mile the engine died again and this time for good til its thirst for petro was satisfied...We started walking a short distance to an overpass, climbed it and both of us using our cell phones tried to call someone that might help us. As we were doing this, a red pickup truck stopped and the man inside asked if he could be of assistance. He had noticed the truck on the road and thought we may need help. This very nice man offered to drive down the road and bring us back some gas. He refused to allow us to pay for it. When he got back we gased the truck and it started right away. We thanked him and asked his name. It is Joe Copeland of Sweetwater Tx....On the road again, with less than 1 gallon of gas we willed ourselves the 5 or so miles to the next station before the tank ran empy again. It actually died after we exited the freeway at the station, but started back up. We pulled up to the pump and tried to enter our purchase card info and found yet another station that SWB prefers not to use. J jumps back in the truck and says that we can make it to the Conoco across the freeway because it was downhill to get over there. So off we go again...J was right, we did make it. When he got out to pump the gas he realized he had left the gas cap at the other less desirable station. Luckily, when we returned there to retreave it, it was still there...I promise to never roll my eyes again when J wants to stop and refuel the truck...BTW, the whatever we were talking about was politics. This incident is just one more reason we should not be discussing politics.