Friday, March 25, 2011

Gas Tanks and Grandfathers

I miss my Papa today.

I lost him the same day that I lost Sawan.  So, in some ways I feel like I only grieved him from the phone call in the morning, finding out that he died, until that evening at 7:45 when I found Sawan.  After that, the magnitude of grieving my husband surpassed the magnitude of grieving my grandfather.

But there have been a few times in this last year and a half that I’ve wished that I could talk to him.

A few years ago, he and I had a conversation about how angry he was the first time he paid more than ten cents a gallon for gas.  It made me think of him every time I hit the milestones with my tank, and I would often call him.  “Papa, I was just calling to tell you that it cost me more than $20 to fill up my tank, and it made me think of you.”  Then again, not long after, when I paid more than $30. 

I spent $45 this week.  I am lucky that I barely drive my car.  I live a block away from work, and so I sometimes go a couple of days without driving my car, and only have to fill it about every 3 weeks or sometimes once a month.  So I haven’t paid that much attention to gas prices.  I sucked air when I saw that it was well over $3/gallon and the whole tank was 45bucks.  I wanted to call him.  To commiserate together.  I think he would have said something snarky. That would have been fun.

3 comments:

  1. I've been thinking about Papa too. I think of him whenever I eat pickles. He ate them with eggs for breakfast! Funny.
    On the gasoline price note: cost us £71.50 to fill up our car yesterday. Ouch.

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  2. By the way I just did the calculation. That's $115!!!

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  3. @Cori, I know, SO gross about the pickles. I wonder if he really liked it or if he did it just to be quirky. And, you win with the gas prices. I wasn't really complaining that much, these days everybody wins against me because I NEVER have to fill up. That was sortof my point. I feel sorry for everyone else and was a little shocked that not everyone had been complaining about it so I was unprepared.

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