Cheating on my Gas Station (or being unfaithful to my garage)*

*Translation of title provided for Irish readers for whom the word “Gas” denotes fun, good craic (really good fun)** etc

**Translation of craic provided for international readers for whom the word “craic” means nothing or drugs  {perhaps I should retitle this post “nothing or drugs” that’s a good title}

But anyway

It all started weeks ago if I’m honest – my garage, that I stop at each morning for coffee and a 1 cent bar of chocolate, they started forcing viewspapers on me along with the chocolate… chocolate is bad enough, well actually coffee is bad enough, but suddenly they were giving away dirty newsprint laden piles of thinly sliced dead trees as well.  I could have said no thanks, in fact one time I did, but after that I was finding that the surplus papers were sometimes handy to have in the car – for drying out wet 3 ¾ yr olds only pair of shoes, or keeping 3 ¾ yr old warm when I forgot to bring a blanket for him and then remembered that the car’s heating wasn’t working… so I took em, for a while, but always with a slight mini cringe inside, especially the weeks they give away tabloids (as opposed to “serious papers) and the headlines are even more depressing – “Sicko killer given a bath”  “Dying Mum said icecream would save her” type of stuff – like hardly ever things like “Cure for cancer found” or “Scientists prove people are getting nicer and happier”

So yesterday they went a step further, not happy with making my car look (even more) like a centre for the homeless, they now want to take up my free time.  “Do you have a loyalty card?” the girl suddenly said, like it had just occurred to her and having already forced the daily paper on me,  “No” I said, “I think you will like it” she said in her exotic accent, “Here” she said in the same tone I’ve seen childcare workers use on the 3 ¾ year old “take this home and study it, I think you will like it and we actually sold a winner recently”   “Oh, what did they win” I asked, because I cannot NOT be polite, for some annoying reason it’s like part of my personality  or something, and she told me “A trip to New York” and I said “Oh that’s great yeah” “I’ll be here on Friday if you have any questions” she said.

So this morning, even though she wasn’t going to be there, I avoided my usual garage, and went to another one.  One that was less well laid out – you had to walk through the whole shop to get to the coffee, and when you were at the coffee machine there were no sweet delicious almost free things around to tempt you, no, there were just cleaning products, sponges and cloths and bin liners, and because I have an insane job that this week requires me to sit through a few hours of presentations from companies who make these things and I know very little about them, I may have become the first person in history to impulse buy some of those products in that shop – In fact I think they were hidden there at the back of the shop trying to avoid purchase, the shop was laid out by someone who wanted to only have to stock the shelves once, and not have to worry about people buying all the stuff and then they’d have to redo it, oh no… in fact the place is clearly a cover for some illegal enterprise, (I should probably check the sponges don’t have drugs actually hidden in them – at least before I wet them for use) now that I think about it, maybe I should report to the authorities…. I’ll have to trust that they are monitoring the situation – perhaps they’re reading this blog even now and will know which garage I mean and will investigate accordingly.  Mean time – I don’t know how long I’ll stay away from the regular place… they know me, their coffee is good, they make it easier to buy sugary rubbish, I must be strong, must stay away….