When your son calls to say the police are looking for you...

Um..  Yeah.  After a typical Saturday of  a usual drive for Mom and me...   I mean the usual drive, the usual restaurant, even the usual order, we headed through our normal Amish route and bought fresh vegetables.  We even opted to come on back home where I promptly snoozed in my chair... Ordinary Saturday, right?

Suddenly...  My son's special cell phone ring jars me awake...

"Uh, Mom?  You in Moberly?"

"No."

"James (a young friend of his) just came in (to my son's workplace) and said he heard on the scanner that the Moberly police are looking for you and headed down to get you for questioning."

"Huh?"  I'm like that,  quick on my feet.

Seems my car got turned in as a drive off from the Moberly Shell station.  I am a bit challenged when it comes to self serve gas...  I'm spoiled by Rick in Bevier who pumps gas, washes windows, and checks everything... But we were headed the other way with less than a half tank.  I had suggested a run to Bevier, but it's a 30-mile round trip, out of the way...  .  Mom urged me to do it this way and gave me confidence ( or guilt) to do it myself.

After a little fumbling and muttering, I pumped the gas and felt pretty good about myself.  Just by luck, we wadded up the receipt printed for my gas...

Next move for me? I had to call the station, call the Moberly police, crawl around on the car floor and find that precious piece of trash...  Then the Moberly police insisted to be free of this problem I had to physically take the crumpled receipt to them...  It was a ( guess what?) 30-mile round trip, out of the way!!!!!

Then I stopped by the Shell Station, not high on my list of faves, and asked for something free.....  I really didn't care what.  I was told by the man in charge that the morning shift guy was ....  Shall I say "unintelligent."  If I want, I can call the manager on Monday...  

Through all this Mom was pretty hot...  Her blue eyes snapped..  She was mad at just about everybody except maybe my son and me...  I think she feared my reputation was coming undone...  Poor woman, I thought she realized that halo raveled long ago...  

Turns out the CRIME happened a little after 11:00 a.m.    My ticket checked out at 10:56...  The culprit made off with sixteen bucks of  " golden petrol"......  And next time I'm going to Rick's DX.

This post was in no way paid for by Rick's DX...  ---or Shell Oil....