Part 2 of some of the more humorous moments from the past week, this one is about a simple task we all take for granted, filling our gas tanks.
Before the hurricane hit I had filled both of our cars with gas, which turned out to be a good thing. Â I knew that stations might be without power and unable to pump gas, but had no idea how bad the search for gas would be after the storm passed.
New Jersey instituted an odd/even gas system reminiscent of the early 1970 gas crisis in the US.  The rationing certainly seems to have eased the lines a bit, though people are still lining up and waiting to fill their tanks.
We have two cars one ‘odd’ and one ‘even’. Â The minivan which we had driven to Brooklyn is the ‘even’ car. Â On Sunday the gas lines in Brooklyn (which is in NY and not subject to the odd/even system) stretched for blocks and blocks. Â Walking around I even saw a couple of people pushing their car along the line. Â I decided the best thing to do was to simply preserve the half of tank of gas I had in the van, so it sat parked, and waiting. Â It was enough to get us back home, and a little further, but sooner or later we were going to need to fill it up.
On Monday (an odd day) I woke up at 4:45 AM, and set out to find gas which happily I did only waiting in line about 30 minutes. Â We wanted to go home on Monday, but once home could not get gas in the ‘even’ van on an odd day. Â I briefly considered the option of putting the cars plates on the van just to fill up, but decided the risk was to great if anything happened between my house and the gas station.
So here I was on this gas line at 5:00 in the morning, chatting with a NYC cop.
Cop: I see you are from NJ
Me: Yep, and I am hoping to get back there today, but I can’t fill up in NJ today because it is an odd day
Cop: You could always trade license plates with someone
Me: My other car has an odd plate, I thought about switching plates, but if I met any of your friends along the way I might be in a bit of trouble
Cop: They would just issue you a summons
Me: I think i will just wait in line here and fill up
Needless to say I did not follow the cops advice, in fact I was a bit surprised he suggested it. Â So I waited a relatively short 30 minutes and since I was in NY (not NJ and it’s absurd full service only law) I filled the tank myself, squeezing every last drop of gas that the tank would hold. Both cars now have enough gas to get us into next week when the lines will hopefully have eased out.
