Gasing up - The Shell from Hell

I had a great time in Calgary, but forgot to write about the hellish trip home.

First off, we got a bit of a late start back to Edmonton after Eric went out to plug in the block heater to discover a can of pop had exploded all over the front seat of the car. We had to clean it up while it was still frozen or get coke all over everything once the heat started and the frozen coke started to melt.

Now when I say heat, keep in mind that I drive a firefly, and despite a new thermostat, a heater core flush, and a strip of cardboard in front of the radiator, it just doesn't pump out the kind of heat you need for Edmonton weather. When it's just me driving, it's fine, but with three people, the windows fogged up quickly and froze immediately. Despite constant scraping, we just couldn't keep the windows clear, so when we got to gasoline Alley just outside of Red deer we stopped to gas up and de-ice.

The only gas station open at the late hour of 8:30pm, was Shell. It was cold, it was dark, and we were all pretty tired. Little did we know the nightmare that lay in store for us.

After scraping the inside and outside of all the windows so we could see, Eric filled the car with gas while Jen and I went into the "Food Store" to get some warm drinks. I made the mistake of putting some milk into mine and watched in disgust as the spoiled milk formed big spoiled chunks in my drink. Yuck. I showed the lady at the register and she let me have a new drink.

Eric finished filling up the car and joined us in the food store. He paid for two liters of oil, $18.25 worth of gas, and a coffee, and then went back out to the car to discover it wouldn't start. We tried everything we could think of and could not get the darned thing started again.

With it being New Years Day and us being in the middle of nowhere, we were pretty much up shit creek. Eric borrowed the cashiers pen and went outside to call BCAA while Jen went next door to the truck stop to see if anyone knew of a place nearby we could go for assistance. Luckily enough there was a mechanic at the truck stop and he came over to look at the car. Applying Murphy's law though, all he had to do was turn the key and the dang thing started. Oh well at least we weren't stranded anymore.

Inside though the cashier was freaking out about her pen. She was all worried Eric was going to run off with her 50 cent pen and then her other customers wouldn't be able to sign their receipts. She was getting really worked up too. She kept stressing until I went outside and retrieved the pen (which wasn't going anywhere).

Eric came back into the food store to tell us the car was running again and that we could go, and realized that the cashier's husband had thrown out the coffee he had just bought and hadn't even sipped yet. The cashier begrudgingly gave him a new coffee.

So finally, and hour after we pulled in, we were ready to go. We all piled in and prepared to leave and the guy comes running out and asks us who's gonna pay for our gas. We tell him we paid a half hour ago and he makes us come inside. The cashier still had our receipt (easy to pick out with the coffee and two oils on it) and it showed we paid $18.25. But the same pump we were on was showing and additional $19.95 since then, and there were no other cars around.

Eric said some guy had come by with a Jerry Can and had filled up. They didn't believe us but how the heck am I gonna fit almost $40 worth of gas into a 25L tank? Luckily for us there were two other people who had seen the guy and vouched for us. The cashier said she would sort it out in minute and started helping the 5 other people in line while we stood there waiting....and waiting. Tired and cranky I got impatient and asked "Look can we leave now or what?". With a big sigh the lady said "Well if it's not your gas.....". Eric wanted to stay and sort it out but I was so tired and getting really cranky and with Eric in tow I headed back to the car. An hour and ahlaf after we had pulled in, we were finally back on the road.

So instead of getting home at 9:00 as planned, we got home at almost midnight. I wasn't happy considering I had to be up at 6:00am the next day to go to work, but what can you do. We're never going back to that Hell...I mean Shell again.