I flipped out on some gas station attendant Wednesday night. I felt so bad after the fact. No excuses, but I had an important work related meeting to attend Thursday morning, and that previous evening I noticed my back tire was really low which could either be the result of the weather changing as tires lose pressure as it gets colder, or worse case scenario, maybe it had a hole from a nail or something. At any rate, it was late, and I made the decision to wait until the morning to take care of it. While in the bed, I couldn't sleep as I had lot of crap on my mind, both JW and nonJW related. So I decided to go ahead and handle the tire. At around 1:30 in the morning, I drove to the gas station. I pulled up to the Air/Vac machine. I then went to remove all of the nozzle caps, but had trouble with the last one. I just couldn't get a decent grip on it, and it was not budging. So I went to pop off the hubcap,but it cracked, and was useless at that point. On a positive note, I was able to get a better grip on the nozzle cap though and twist it off. As I walked around the car and approached the Air/Vac Machine, it started to rain a little heavier than a light drizzle, and it was chilly outside. All I had on was a lightweight jacket, with a undershirt on, some oversized sweats without a drawstring that I only wear when lounging about at home, no underwear, no socks, just some beat up New Balances. Then things got real bad.
I reached in my pocket for some change to insert into the Air/Vac machine, and all I had was some ones. So I walked over to the door of the station, and pulled on it, and it was locked!!! There's a sign on it that says, "Sorry, be back in 20 minutes." Now I don't know if that sign was posted 20 minutes ago, or 2 minutes ago, so I walked back to the car and right before I opened the door I looked back and there was the attendant moving about in the station. So I walked back to the door, and knocked. He approached the door, this old Gomer Pyle looking fella came and pointed down at the sign which infuriated me. I yelled through the glass to acknowledge the sign and I held up the dollar and said I need change. He pointed down at th sign again which only ticked me off more. So now I'm yelling at him that I only need change for this dollar. He started yelling through the glass from his side of the door that the cash register was down or updating or something and that there's nothing he can do for me. So I yelled back and asked if he personally had any change on him. He pointed back to the sign on the door, and then proceeded to tell me that this was the 5th time he had to tell me that the store is closed for 20 minutes. When he did this, he took his hand and opened it to show all five fingers to emphasize that this was the 5th time telling me this. At that point I just completely lost all patience and flipped out. He didn't have any teeth and he appeared to be slow or something. I'm yelling through the door about how he's a old jackass retard and that companies just hire any muthaf##$in retard they can find off the street. The reality is I wanted to kick in the door and beat him to death. I could feel my heart beating and my fingers went numb. I just wanted to kill this old guy. I mean literally take his life because for that split moment in time the value of his life diminished to zero in my eyes.
At any rate I walked down the street underwearless, with my drawstringless oversizes sweatpants getting rained on to a 24hr CVS and got the change needed, and when I got back to the gas station, what do I see? That same old codger ringing up a couple other people in the store. By that time I had calmed down, so I just laughed cynically to myself, and started to walk over to him and apologize. For whatever reason I decided against it, and filled up the tires, and then went back home. I still feel bad about it as there's never an excuse to speak that way to people, although it does happen. I can only imagine if I didn't have the guilt meter in my brain, like how far would I have been willing to go? Enough to either really hurt or kill him, or maybe he kill me in self defense? Who knows, but regardless of the outcome it wasn't worth the aggrevation. Far too many people with hypertension, or in jail, or the grave because of a lack of guilt.
