I DRIVE TO WIN.

I started out today with a full tank of gas. That little gas gauge has been taunting me for the past 2 weeks. For some reason, I'd decided to just fill up my tank enough, last minute, to get to work and then home again. Too bad this lofty plan didn't include trip to the gym, lunch runs, or errands on the way home, or the biggest doosie, driving to work the next day. Every morning I would fill up, while running late for work, I would tell myself that I would stop at Costco on the way home and fill up all the way.

Enter the commute home...and a slightly related tangent. All summer my boss has graciously let us close the office at 4 p.m., an hour earlier than our normal hour. This was glorious and the angels of the freeway sang to me the whole way home. I made it home never later than 4:30. Of course, I wanted to take advantage of getting home early, so who wanted to stop at a crowded Costco to get gas. Not I. So I would bypass and say I'd leave extra early to get gas in the morning. Well, that never happened either.

Because of this crazy roulette game I played with myself I managed to drive home from Salt Lake to Kaysville on empty at 12:30 a.m. alone. Did I mention that I once saw a 20/20 on a girl that went to a gas station alone at 12:30, and got kidnapped, and that getting kidnapped is one of my greatest fears? So I'd have been damned if I stopped at a gas station by myself. I did, the one that you can almost see from my house. It was scary. Not a single soul, car, or kitty. I've never pumped 2 gallons into my car ever. The gas gap was not returned to it's home until the next morning.

Well, now that school is almost back full throttle, we're open again until 5, which also puts a snag in my gas getting abilities (mentally). Now instead of a neat and tidy 30 minute commute, I now have a stop and go, brake light festival of a commute where I sometimes don't have the honor of breaking 65 mph. I have broken out the Christmas playlist TWICE, and I despise Christmas music before at least a week before Thanksgiving. Or when it first snows. Okay, maybe I'm dramatizing a little, BUT how is it possible that the first two days I'm commuting at 5 are there 3 accidents one day and a street light out on beck street the next? Oh, I guess it's probably because the highway angels are overrun by the highway devils at 5 pm, and all is lost.

I have yet in my life to run out of gas while driving, but I'm pushing the ticket here. It's only a matter of time. I have a goal to keep my tank at at least half full, you know, in case our 50 year over due earthquake finally decides to make her debut. I'm lucky if I more than a quarter tank. I could get all metaphorical on your butt and tie this into how I live my life, but I think I've written enough words for today. Maybe tomorrow, but something else, most likely just as interesting as commuting, will distract me tomorrow.

I cannot wait for the day when I am no longer dubbed a "commuter" The highway angels will truly sing that day. I'll probably have a screaming baby in the back of my car when that happens, but as of now, that doesn't sound too shabby.