Air Criminals

This is how I know that I'm old: I've found a situation where I'm pining for how it was when I was young.

The Family Murano is quite vociferous about telling the driver (and everyone else in the car) when the tire pressure is low. It does this every time that you turn on the car. And it's loud.

We checked the onboard thingamajigger to find out which tires were low (and how low) to find out that three of the four tires were dangerously low. They have a slow leak, and I guess we've been negligent for some time about getting the pressure checked. So I, the responsible pater familias for our tribe, determined to fill up the air after filling up on gas.

Easy, right? Well, it was when I was filling up my bicycle. That, though, was when it was my primary form of transportation.

Not now. We pulled up to the very impressive looking machine (a far cry from the random hose with the half-rusted "Air" sign from my youth) to find out that it cost $.75 for three minutes of air. Yes you heard me .... FOR AIR! Such is life, right ... so we dug for quarters. No dice, because we've been giving them to the Salvation Army bell ringers -- which led to some very un-Christmaslike thoughts.

Instead of breaking my $10 to get quarters, we hit the next gas station. It wanted $.75 for air. And the next one. $.75 for air again. So, at the fourth one, I broked down and trudged to the attendant.

Because it was 7:00 PM on a Sunday in granola / hippie Clintonville, (my neighborhood) all of the doors were locked. I knocked on the window, and got my quarters through the "criminal" window ("put your ten in the hermetically sealed chamber, please") while the cashier-dude stared at me. I wanted $2 of quarters, and the rest in bills. I got $3 in change, including nickels and dimes. Guess my voice didn't go very well through the circa-1970 intercom device that they installed.

I got to the car, put in my quarters, and started to work the machine. It had a spring retraction system, so there was no slack. So I was working in the rain, in the dark, in the cold, with one foot stepping on the hose, one foot keeping my balance, one hand positioning the hose to lessen the impact of the tear that was leaking my precious, precious air and one hand trying to connect the hose nozzle to my tire valve.

It sucked. In fact, that's what I said when I got back in the car. Which Henry repeated. A lot.

There. I feel better. Hope it was as enjoyable to read as was frustrating to live.