drivingUp until now, I had never had any major problems with driving. Changing lanes on highways still freaks me out a little, and I tend to get lost sometimes, but I do alright.
However, today I surpassed myself. I had gone to Belconnen to do a bit of DVD browsing, and on the way back decided to put a little bit of petrol in the car (as Belconnen is the other side of town and I hadn't paid for a cent of the petrol I had used until today, thankfully).
I stopped in at the Erindale petrol station, which is about 5-10 minutes drive from my house. Now, while I had seen it done many times, I had never actually put petrol in myself, but assumed that it would be pretty easy.
What followed was a comedy of errors. Firstly, I parked in a bay only to find that the access door was on the wrong side of the vehicle. Luckily, there was no-one behind me so I backed out and drove into the bay next door.
Getting out, I walked over to the petrol pump and tried to open the door. There was no handle or keyhole, so I assumed eventually that it must open with some sort of control inside the car. I looked around near the steering wheel, but couldn't see anything that looked hopeful.
I decided to call my parents, but as there is some rule against using mobile phones in a petrol station (radiation or something? They never explain these things), I drove off into a nearby car park and gave my Mum a call.
Incredibly, she had no idea whatsoever (we've had this car for two years) and said that Dad was the one who filled up the petrol. She put him on the phone and he duly informed me that the lever was located under the seat. With a sigh of relief, I drove back into the petrol station to give it another go.
As the tank was about half full, I figured I could fill it with $15 worth and still only fill it up to about the three quarter point. I started pumping, but at about $8 it stopped. I should have realised this meant that the tank was full, but I kept trying to put more in. I managed to get it up to $10 but a little bit of petrol started leaking out. Hastily I replaced the cap, locked all the doors, and went inside to pay.
As I was approaching the car, I had a terrible feeling. I couldn't feel the car keys in either of my pockets. I jogged up to the car, and somewhat unsurprisingly, the keys were still in the ignition. All the doors were locked and the windows were up.
At this point there was already a car behind mine waiting for me to leave, but I didn't know what to do so I called my Dad and asked him to get to the petrol station as soon as possible with his keys. I explained to the driver behind me what had happened, and they found another bay, thankfully without giving me too much of a hard time.
Anyway, close to 10 minutes later my Dad arrived in the van, and exhausted, I finally managed to leave the petrol station and drive home.
The moral of the story: know what you're doing before you use a petrol pump for the first time. The lesson is, everything I did was wrong. I don't think I could have really done anything else wrong when I come to think of it, so at least next time I'll know what I'm doing.
Not that I'll be going near a petrol station in the near future.
