Running on Empty

While that could be a metaphorical statement this time of year - or any time of year on a Thursday, for that matter - this time I mean it literally.

Or... well... I almost mean it, but it is in the literal sense.

You see, I'm one of those people who pretty much never lets his car's gas gauge get below the 1/4 mark. Once it drops below that and starts edging toward the "E" I start to get kind of nervous.

Even though my car gets 20+ miles to the gallon most of the time (in bad traffic when it's 5 degrees out, I don't expect to get great mileage), I still start to get nervous when the gas drops below a half tank. That may have something to do with the fact that I know my tank only holds about 13 gallons - and 8 of those are in the top half of the gas gauge. Yeah. No. I'm not sure how that works, either.

Since it's been so cold the past couple of mornings - and since I've had things going on in the evenings - I haven't made it to the gas station to fill up. Which means that, as we were driving home from dinner tonight (you'll have to wait until tomorrow to hear about dinner), my gauge was coming close to the "E."

Here's what could be the weirdest part of all of this, though: I didn't fill the car on the way home. I'll be leaving home a few minutes early tomorrow to do that. At that point, we're supposed to actually be up to about 20 degrees. I can deal with that for filling the car.