Blame it on the (already mentioned) poor parking design or simple carelessness on the part of drivers, but getting into and out of a gas station is no less difficult or treacherous than removing an abscessed tooth from an awake and irritated bear. As far as coming into the station, the entrance to the gas station comes straight off the main road, usually requiring one of two maneuvers: (1) crossing four lanes of traffic at just the right moment that you suffer only a lost rear bumper; (2) turning into the station at such an angle that your right front fender briefly touches your trunk. Upon escaping the cars flying by you on the main road, you must immediately swerve to miss the following obstacles:
- a car backing out of a (most likely) non-existent parking spot (the driver obviously busy turning up the bass volume on his or her radio);
- a pedestrian walking to their car from the convenience store at a snail's pace, his or her face showing full acknowledgment of the fact that you could run him or her over if you weren't such a nice person;
- a pyramid of windshield washing fluid, inexplicably blocking the only available marked parking spot;
- a car coming in the entrance diametrically opposite your current position but for some reason taking the pump nearest to you; and
- a convenience store jumbo-sized Styrofoam soda fountain cup placed in your way by a now-absent adolescent such that the straw (about three feet long) would pierce your tire and/or gas tank if you attempted to squash it, (which would be much to the prankster's delight had he or she actually stayed around for more than five seconds to see the fruit of his or her labor after placing it there.)
Trying to leave the station is an equally insurmountable feat. Remember how you entered? Now you are to do it in the opposite direction. Thousands of other cars, waiting for that perfect traffic moment, are in line to speed across and into your path at speeds upwards of the rotational velocity of Jupiter (the planet, not the god of Roman mythology.) At any given gas station at any given moment, five hundred drivers are racing each other for the chance to make it into or out of a gas station with, at the very least, their cell phone conversations being filled with curses hurled at the other maniac drivers and, if possible, their lives.
I propose immediate action to help alleviate the problem of gas station entrances and exits. Of course, I can't do anything about it right now. I'm still waiting to find a good traffic moment to get out of this gas station.
No comments:
Post a Comment