have mercy

the van next to me could not have expressed my thoughts any more perfectly.

when i got in my car this morning, i discovered that i only had enough gas to get to work. for the first two miles of my commute, i debated stopping at the local petrol station and decided to, as nike would say, just do it since i likely wouldn't want to on my way home when i was hungry and it was 100 degrees out and all i wanted to do was wash my hair.

a creature of habit, i go to the same station 90% of the time. you may be able to imagine my surprise at hearing a booming voice yelling at me from a tiny speaker about the benefits of gas cards and fountain drinks the moment my card was accepted … "did you know that right now you could be earning valuable points toward your next gas purchase?!?"

whose idea was this? are we so dependent on media that we can't enjoy a semi-peaceful moment pumping gas without suffering through a commercial for the station we're currently patronizing?

fortunately, i spied the mute button on the obnoxious speaker. unfortunately, i pressed it. all that awarded me was a beep to accompany all the yelling. actually, it awarded me about a dozen beeps because i couldn't figure out why someone would install a mute button if they didn't intend for it to mute things. it's like at work when IT installs something that requires a reboot … you get the message that says "you must restart your computer in order for the changes to take effect. would you like to restart now?" and the "no" is grayed out.

eventually my tank filled and i reentered the sanctuary of my car where i enjoyed the relative quiet for a moment before turning on chrome.

as i drove away, i noticed the big white van two pumps over. it had dark blue stenciling that simply read, "CHRIST."