I paid for three gallons of gas the other day.
In dimes.
I don't know what the most humiliating part of that day was, to be completely frank with you. Was it the actual act of handing the woman behind the counter 80 dimes? Or was it the fact that we even had 80 dimes in our house? Or how about the sphincter-tightening ride into town hoping to not run out of gas? Or the fear of running into someone at the gas station with whom I graduated high school and who drives an SUV with vanity plates that read YALLSUK?
Certainly I've had my share of public shame and embarrassment, but this drop-kicked me into a far deeper level of Hell. By way of comparison, for example:
- I've stood in line with a box of tampons, vainly over-stuffing my arms with every male-seducing checkout line impulse purchase I could find in order to hide the Stayfree logo. Listen, you can never have too many 300-count Slim Jim value jugs.
- I once went to reach for something across a teacher's desk and accidentally punched her left breast. How did I know it was her left breast, you ask? Because she was our health teacher, and we were learning human sexuality. It's a good goddamn thing I didn't punch her in the right labia majora. (What? You think I was born tall and then shrunk?).
- I was yelling to myself in the car while waiting for the light to change when I turned and saw four varsity football players staring at me from the car next to mine. I quickly pretended I was listening to Kanye and even flashed the Rock On symbol. Only to realize it was the hand sign for "I Love You."
- Just recently I was on the stand in a court proceeding and was asked how long I had been married to Corrine. I went pale, looked at Corrine's face for an answer, and finally said "Uh...um...er...six years?" Under oath. Justice is blind my ass. Now I'm blind from the look I got from my wife. Of six years. Who I love. And whose breasts or labia I've never punched.
Dimes for gas is a far different stool softener. Far different. Principally, tampon purchasing, tit-punching, and public contempt of wife fall within the arena of mild humiliation. Paying for your gas in dimes, however, is a clear sign of abject poverty and therefore beyond mere face-blushing embarrassment.
I suppose I've denied myself, all these years, the possibility that I could be poor despite all the signs being there: The long succession of $500 cars whose mileage began at 500,000; the 12 volumes of Betty Crocker ramen recipes; the non-designer wear from Goodwill Industries; the savings account passbook so unused that it still has that new bank smell. All legitimate indications pointing to a certain personal financial propensity, but ignored nevertheless.
But dimes for gas? That was the wake-up call; my Grapes of Wrath moment. Standing in line at the convenience store, I experienced a flash moment of clarity and saw my family, like the Joads, being forced to live in a boxcar. Or the 2015 equivalent: an abandoned UPS truck, since I would have no clue where to find a boxcar these days.
I pulled into the station and unclenched my teeth and my buttocks at the same time. The relief of having made it into town on the vapors of gas and whispered prayers was quickly replaced with a new fear.
I looked down into the passenger's seat and stared at the plastic sandwich baggy full of the dimes. I looked up again at the store. Foolishly I had been aching for the possibility that no one would be at a Cumberland Farms on a Friday morning in Maine. That everyone had somehow forgotten that it existed or had slept in or had overdosed the night before on their own fucking vomit.
Instead, every pump was being pumped; an 18-wheeler of fuel stood on the tarmac with the driver frigging with hoses and yacking at the local folks like they were friends from the war; the store bustled with early-morning coffee wranglers and toothless scratch-ticket whores. The line at the counter was 10 deep and I screamed at the side of the passenger window "Don't you fucking lowlife, degenerate, crack-smoking, shit-for-brains have anything better to do?!?! My problems are real! I got a bag of dimes here!""
I grabbed the baggy, dumped the dimes into my hand, got out of the car and let the coins fill up my pocket as I walked toward the store. Once inside, I took the last spot in line. I clutched the dimes in my pocket with an oily palm. The bulge so pronounced and the fiddling with the coins so audible that I just know everyone there thought I was trying to reassemble some sort of semi-automatic with my right hand. Or really loud at masturbating.
Gradually, painfully, the line moved ahead and just as I neared the counter a man took up residence behind me. I turned, cleared my throat, looked out across the store and said, "Oh. Yeah. Forgot sumthin'. You go on ahead."
"You sure? I can hold your spot," he said.
"Nah. No. It's big."
"Huh?"
"What I'm getting. What I forgot. It's big. Take a while. Over in the...that...big items section."
I stepped away and walked among the aisles of overpriced cereal and toilet paper and dog collars, every-so-often peeking toward the counter to monitor the line. It took me 45 minutes to finally catch a break.
I got to the counter and, with ironic pep, said, "Hi. I'll take 8 dollars on pump 3," to the attendant, who also just happens to have graduated high school with two of my children.
"Hey. How are you?" she asked. A line was beginning to form behind me while my intestines started to weave themselves into a French braid.
"Goodandyou?"
"Are you still living in Buckfield? I loved that house. It was so, you know, like, old and full of character and had all these creaks and groans like it was haunted or something, but not in a ghost way, in a good way."
"Um. Nope. We moved."
"Awww. That's too bad! I loved that old house. And the pond out back, did you ever swim in that? I can't remember, and the horses! Corrine still ride? I would love to ride a horse someday but I can't because I've got spine issues. So, eight on three?"
"You did where?"
"Eight dollars in gas on pump three?"
By now, the line behind me was long and everyone looked like they blamed me for why they had to come to Cumbys braless or in their night pants to get cigarettes because their goddamn good-for-nothing significant others were too hungover to do it themselves.
"Yeah. Yup. Eight bucks."
Slowly I dug deep into my pocket and produced a mound of silver.
"Hope ya like dimes. Heh heh. Heh heh. Heh heh," I flirted.
She looked back at me like I'd punched her in the labia. The woman behind me sighed windily, her breath announcing the coming of the seven angels of Satan on seven black horses. And from the corner of my eye I detected the shifting of others from one foot to another.
I thrust the coins into the attendant's hands and said "It's all there. I know. I counted it 76 times over there in the motor oil and donuts aisle."
She nodded knowingly and took the dimes and dropped them into her register.
"Say hey to Harrison and Alyssa!" she said brightly. I grunted and waved, then navigated through the gauntlet of glassy-eyed men and women I just knew had spent the previous night fornicating on their plaid couches in the pale, flickering light of a not-wide-screen television that showed a Downeast Dickering marathon.
How had it come to this? I asked myself as I pumped my three gallons of gas. I'm better than this! I'm not one of them.
But, alas, I was.
I had to admit it. I was poor.
But, do you think I let it get to me?
No no no.
I pulled into the station and unclenched my teeth and my buttocks at the same time. The relief of having made it into town on the vapors of gas and whispered prayers was quickly replaced with a new fear.
I looked down into the passenger's seat and stared at the plastic sandwich baggy full of the dimes. I looked up again at the store. Foolishly I had been aching for the possibility that no one would be at a Cumberland Farms on a Friday morning in Maine. That everyone had somehow forgotten that it existed or had slept in or had overdosed the night before on their own fucking vomit.
Instead, every pump was being pumped; an 18-wheeler of fuel stood on the tarmac with the driver frigging with hoses and yacking at the local folks like they were friends from the war; the store bustled with early-morning coffee wranglers and toothless scratch-ticket whores. The line at the counter was 10 deep and I screamed at the side of the passenger window "Don't you fucking lowlife, degenerate, crack-smoking, shit-for-brains have anything better to do?!?! My problems are real! I got a bag of dimes here!""
I grabbed the baggy, dumped the dimes into my hand, got out of the car and let the coins fill up my pocket as I walked toward the store. Once inside, I took the last spot in line. I clutched the dimes in my pocket with an oily palm. The bulge so pronounced and the fiddling with the coins so audible that I just know everyone there thought I was trying to reassemble some sort of semi-automatic with my right hand. Or really loud at masturbating.
Gradually, painfully, the line moved ahead and just as I neared the counter a man took up residence behind me. I turned, cleared my throat, looked out across the store and said, "Oh. Yeah. Forgot sumthin'. You go on ahead."
"You sure? I can hold your spot," he said.
"Nah. No. It's big."
"Huh?"
"What I'm getting. What I forgot. It's big. Take a while. Over in the...that...big items section."
I stepped away and walked among the aisles of overpriced cereal and toilet paper and dog collars, every-so-often peeking toward the counter to monitor the line. It took me 45 minutes to finally catch a break.
I got to the counter and, with ironic pep, said, "Hi. I'll take 8 dollars on pump 3," to the attendant, who also just happens to have graduated high school with two of my children.
"Hey. How are you?" she asked. A line was beginning to form behind me while my intestines started to weave themselves into a French braid.
"Goodandyou?"
"Are you still living in Buckfield? I loved that house. It was so, you know, like, old and full of character and had all these creaks and groans like it was haunted or something, but not in a ghost way, in a good way."
"Um. Nope. We moved."
"Awww. That's too bad! I loved that old house. And the pond out back, did you ever swim in that? I can't remember, and the horses! Corrine still ride? I would love to ride a horse someday but I can't because I've got spine issues. So, eight on three?"
"You did where?"
"Eight dollars in gas on pump three?"
By now, the line behind me was long and everyone looked like they blamed me for why they had to come to Cumbys braless or in their night pants to get cigarettes because their goddamn good-for-nothing significant others were too hungover to do it themselves.
"Yeah. Yup. Eight bucks."
Slowly I dug deep into my pocket and produced a mound of silver.
"Hope ya like dimes. Heh heh. Heh heh. Heh heh," I flirted.
She looked back at me like I'd punched her in the labia. The woman behind me sighed windily, her breath announcing the coming of the seven angels of Satan on seven black horses. And from the corner of my eye I detected the shifting of others from one foot to another.
I thrust the coins into the attendant's hands and said "It's all there. I know. I counted it 76 times over there in the motor oil and donuts aisle."
She nodded knowingly and took the dimes and dropped them into her register.
"Say hey to Harrison and Alyssa!" she said brightly. I grunted and waved, then navigated through the gauntlet of glassy-eyed men and women I just knew had spent the previous night fornicating on their plaid couches in the pale, flickering light of a not-wide-screen television that showed a Downeast Dickering marathon.
How had it come to this? I asked myself as I pumped my three gallons of gas. I'm better than this! I'm not one of them.
But, alas, I was.
I had to admit it. I was poor.
But, do you think I let it get to me?
No no no.
Pulling out of the convenience store parking lot I cranked the radio and began singing and drive-dancing in celebration of a gas-level display that read 52 Miles Before Empty. As if that was some great thing in a car that gets 25 miles to the gallon.
The way I was throwing down Anaconda, with my Dollar Tree shades on, you would have thought it read No Man Measures Up to You, Big Guy.
I guess I was elated because I had not fully failed. I had certainly gotten close to it - close enough to hang my toes over the edge - but I hadn't gone completely over. I had not run out of gas and had to push it the rest of the way to the pumps. You know, like those real losers you see every so often.
I may be poor. I admit it. But I got dimes, baby. Just enough dimes to make me not pathetic.
The way I was throwing down Anaconda, with my Dollar Tree shades on, you would have thought it read No Man Measures Up to You, Big Guy.
I guess I was elated because I had not fully failed. I had certainly gotten close to it - close enough to hang my toes over the edge - but I hadn't gone completely over. I had not run out of gas and had to push it the rest of the way to the pumps. You know, like those real losers you see every so often.
I may be poor. I admit it. But I got dimes, baby. Just enough dimes to make me not pathetic.
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