ACK! I've been Modern Technologized!

  ACK!!!!        

This morning I had a showing w-a-a-a-a-y out in the middle of some beautiful North country.  We stopped for gas at an old fashioned country store.

And that's when the trouble started.

No clue.  Absolutely no clue - how to get gas out of this machine.

Inordinately pleased with myself for finding gas for just $3.49 (if paid in cash) per gallon, I pull up to the pump, pay the cheerful cashier, look around the lovely little store and enjoy the "quaint atmosphere" for a few seconds, then head back to remove my gas cap, insert the nozzle and squeeze the handle.

Nothing.

I stare at the pump.  Pull up a lever.  Squeeze.  Nothing.  Pull the lever up and down a few times.  Squeeze.  Nothing.

I glance to the right and feel a little better when I see a young man with a big fancy truck looking bewildered on the other side of the pump.  "There's no place for my credit card!", he says.

For the first time I actually really look at the pump and realize there also is only one type of gas.  At least I think it's only one.  There are two little squares printed on the pump, but they both say "87".  Ok.  I guess I'm using regular.  Although the sign on the pump says Regular High Efficiency in big bold letters.

Completely unsure of myself now, I peek to the right just in time to see another customer push one of the printed squares.  It's a button! 

I glance over to the customer on the other side of the pump and say, as if I've known all along, "Push the little 87 button" and grin when he looks relieved and thanks me.

But as I open my car door, I'm still a little stunned.  I can't believe it.  I've been modern technologized!  I spend so much time with IPhones, computers and LED read-outs I can't handle an old-fashioned gas pump.  My grandfather, who owned a Service Station up North that I occasionally "worked" at when I was little, would be shaking his head at me.

I climb back into my car, turn it on, glance at the LED read-out on the dashboard as it scrolls my name across the screen and then flashes "Headlamps Suggested", obediently turn them on and drive back to my modern world.