When I was a kid, I heard my father tell this story several times and always wondered if it were true. Last year about this time, my half-brother Keith, who is fifteen years my senior sent me one of his wonderful treatises that relate his various life experiences. This particular document confirmed that the story was absolutely true.
It seems that years after moving away, Keith returned to Plainview and just happened to run into the former owner of the gas station who told this story to him, saying, “It was one of the funniest things that ever happened at the station.”
I guess the moral of this story here would be that you should know who you are talking to before making a wisecrack.
When my dad was young, he worked at a gas station in Plainview, Nebraska. One day, a gentleman drove a big touring car into the station. The man was wearing a suit and tie, and there must have been 6 or 7 kids in the car, along with his wife. Dad filled the car with gas, and as was expected in those days, checked the oil, along with the radiator and battery water levels, and then washed the windshield. When the man came in to pay, Dad looked out the station window at the car loaded with kids, and said, “Mr., it looks to me like you just about fu – - ed yourself out of a seat in your car!”
Without so much as a crack of a smile, the man took his change and left. Herb, the station owner, told my brother Keith that he was almost in hysterics laughing and Dad wanted to know what was so damn funny. Herb said I told him, “Jack, you were fortunate to just make the acquaintance of the new Stark Valley Methodist minister!”
Now that is funny.
Tags: Advice, Courtesy, Funny, Social Behavior, Wisecracks
Wonder if the preacher told his wife. Bet not.