The High. Initially, I didn’t want to go. Try as I did, I failed to keep the metropolitan gasoline panic from leeching away my common sense and goodwill. All the same, after watching a little television and hearing something that sounded remotely positive concerning little pipelines that might and other pipelines that could (albeit at 25% capacity), we picked ourselves up and set off for trivia. After all, wasn’t this the night to return to Mellow Mushroom in Buckhead? After suffering through a summer of sub-par questions and below-sub-par hosting in East Cobb, didn’t we deserve an evening that was fun and challenging?
The first quarter was rough. Missed all but one question. But in the second quarter, things started to shift. By the third — an unexpected all-college-football round — we were rocking like that one-armed drummer from Def Leppard. Thanks for that goes to Darcey and the Jaguar King. And in the fourth, we emerged as we did when first we arrived at Bustin’ Heads Trivia way back when: First Place. It was, in a word, szhpectacular.
The Low. As we drove home, almost every gas station we passed was dark, their hoses bagged. The Shell at Collier & Peachtree was lit up like Sunday afternoon. At 11pm, they had lines out into the street. Their prices? $4.09 for midgrade. That’s $1.30 more per gallon than what I paid just this afternoon. Hopefully, Gov Perdue noticed. We had a small empty gas can in the trunk, one we keep for the lawnmower. I suppose we could’ve stopped, but that would’ve been more gas burnt for the waiting.
All the way up Peachtree, to where it splits underneath The Roxy, the story was the same. Some had yellow CAUTION tape. I guess they didn’t have enough bags. Construction on the bridges above GA400 was not detered, giving the overpasses an odd white glow as we approached. Traffic was heavy on each of them. When we exited at Mansell, I didn’t want to look left at the Shell station, but I did. Dark. Same at the BP at Haynes and Old Alabama. But then at the corner, at the very same corner where we tried to wait some six hours earlier, the lights were on. People were still in line. We could’ve filled up the little can, but if we were going to wait, we should really wait for what we need. So we went home, got Nikki’s car and left again.
As before, we got into the turn lane. We even moved about half-a-car-length. But then I saw him. There he was, a BP employee, standing on the sidewalk in front of his store. He was doing semaphore, waving his arms into an X, into a Y, and into an X again. Immediately, the cars in front of us started to peel away. One by one, we got closer to the man, now accompanied by a female employee. I rolled down the window and she said, “That’s it. It’s all over!”
So as before, we turned around and left.
Here’s hoping for tomorrow.
