Oregon law says I don’t have to pump my own gas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oregon law says I can’t be charged more if I refuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I always pull into Full Serve,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
exit the car to greet the men and women who pump my gas<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in a locale where it can rain 70 inches a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They see Elmer standing in the back seat and here come the dog stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One Chevron attendant in Empire<\/p>\n\n\n\n
plays DJ with his phone,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
music channeled through speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One morning, \u201cYour Love\u201d by the Outfield played.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I made a remark about the song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was once the absurd love song for me and Michelle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said one afternoon he awakened in a field<\/p>\n\n\n\n
of a county fair in Central Oregon,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
still drunk, stoned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Outfield were on stage playing the song.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The other day he had Charlie Parker going,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
in a gas station in Coos Bay for chrissakes!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In all my years of not pumping my own gas in Oregon,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I had never heard jazz playing at a gas station.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I asked him about the selection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said a choir teacher in middle school turned him onto to bebop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I guess teachers can make a difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Or the female attendant at the same station,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
who had to kick serious ass across the street<\/p>\n\n\n\n
after homeless miscreants burned down a boarded-up camping trailer<\/p>\n\n\n\n
rotting on an abandoned lot, then kept on squatting on the property.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSo you were kind of like a Sheriff cleaning up Dodge City,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFucking A!\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Better directions than satellite maps,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
savvier than fools on Yelp<\/p>\n\n\n\n
tricks to avoiding Charleston speed traps,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
best Chinese joints,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
hot lines about the molten MAGAs<\/p>\n\n\n\n
bitching about high fuel prices but too stupid to admit their stupidity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when the surprise window washing occurs,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I tip big,<\/p>\n\n\n\n
bigger at Christmas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oregon law says I don’t have to pump my own gas. Oregon law says I can’t be charged more if I refuse. I always pull into Full Serve, exit the car to greet the men and women who pump my gas in a locale where it can rain 70 inches a year. They see Elmer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9953,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-poetry","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9952"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9955,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9952\/revisions\/9955"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}