The know-it-all.

Know it all!

The hot desert sun beat down on that dilapidated gas station.  The sign read $4.79.9 Reg.  Ellen handed Ted a $50 dollar bill. “Fill it up!” She got out and looked at a sign across the road,

“Last gas station for one hundred miles.”

Ted figured he had enough gas to go 90 miles. Throwing reason into the hot wind, he only buys two gallons and pocketed the forty dollars change.

Ellen comes out of the comfort station with two one-liter bottles of water.  She stuffs them in the cooler. 

They pulled away.  The station attendant shook his head as they left.

Ted warned Ellen not to use the AC “to save gas. It was an old sign, it might be more than a hundred miles to the next fill up!”

So they opened the windows and raced down the dusty road at well over eighty miles an hour.

Not a car in sight, sand dunes on both sides.  After thirty minutes, and forty miles, Ted looked down to see the gauge down just under a quarter.  Ellen was sound asleep and sweat soaked.  Ted pulled over to get out of his shirt. 

Ellen woke up as they hit a log that was half buried in the sand, on the side of the road.
Ted stripped out of his soaking wet shirt as he walked around the car, inspecting the wheels.

One rim had a fresh dent and the tire was low, he watched it slowly go flat.

Ellen reached over, started the engine, closed the windows and turned on the AC.

Ted panicked and screamed at Ellen “Don’t do that, we will run out of gas!”

“Why?  You did fill it up didn’t you?”

She locked the doors as he stood there just staring at her.


300 Words