I thought this was pretty funny...
Driver caught in bedpan incidentCountry Today ^ 6-2-05 Al Batt
Posted on 06/02/2005 6:33:01 PM PDT by SJackson
Al Batt Hartland, Minn. (Freeborn County)
I am one of those men who like to live on the edge.
I do not fill my pickup with gasoline until the needle of the fuel gauge has dipped well into the red area. I know that running a vehicle with little fuel in the gas tank makes the vehicle lighter and that means better gas mileage.
This habit does not go unnoticed by my wife. My wife is a leaner. When she rides with me, she leans to the left. She leans not for the mushy reasons of days past; she leans so she can check out two things - the speedometer and the fuel gauge. She is forever telling me that I am going to run out of gas one day and then I'll be sorry. I know I would be sorry only if she found out that I'd run out of gas.
I listen to her and then wait until that needle ventures into the red before fueling up. I realize that a pedestrian is just someone who didn't know how to read a gas gauge properly and that I am able to drive 100 miles on fumes.
One day, my wife went shopping, leaving me to my own devices. I had read in the newspaper that the gas station in Hartland was having a special on pizza and pop at a price much lower than I would be able to stay home for.
So I found myself on a pizza run to Hartland when my old pickup sputtered and ran out of gas.
It wasn't my fault. I think the fuel gauge went bad. I could hear my wife's voice telling me how sorry I would be if I ran out of gas: "Honestly, if brains were gasoline, Allen, you wouldn't have enough to prime the lawn mower!"
My pickup was resting right at the end of Pat Pending's driveway. Pat is our neighborhood inventor. He has more patents than Carter used to have Little Liver Pills. Pat's wife was once the runner-up in the Miss North Dakota contest. She would have won, but her tractor broke down during the talent competition.
I walked up the drive and knocked on the door of Pat's shop. Pat came to the door. He greeted me and then showed me his latest invention, a lawn mower engine that runs on toenail clippings.
I asked him for some gas and he told me to help myself. Pat wasn't surprised by my predicament as my wife had warned him that it would happen. I told him I was sorry to bother him, but not as sorry as I would be if my wife found out that I had run out of gas. I asked him to keep it our little secret. He understood.
I didn't have a gas can. Pat didn't have one either. All of his went into building the world's largest lock washer. Pat and I searched his junk piles and the only promising thing we found was what looked like an old bedpan. It looked like an old bedpan because it was an old bedpan. I asked Pat if the bedpan would hold gas. He told me that it had held a lot more than gas in its day.
I took that bedpan and filled it with gas from Pat's barrel. I filled the bedpan right to the brim. I told Pat that I'd be right back and began hoofing it back to my stalled truck.
The Pendings' dog, Phideaux (pronounced Fido) has the kind of a bark that gives people toothaches. I hiked as fast as a man can who is carrying an overfilled bedpan of gas and has an irritating little dog running between his steps. Phideaux suspected me of stealing an old bedpan full of gas.
I got to the pickup, removed the gas cap and began to pour the gas from the bedpan into the tank. I was hurrying to get on the road before my wife learned of my foolishness.
Phideaux had become convinced of my thievery and began to chew on the back of my ankle. I was pouring gas from the bedpan while trying to shake my leg free of the gnawing poodle.
While doing this, I heard the sound of a car coming from behind. Normally, I am happy to see my wife, but not this time. I said a little prayer, asking that it not be her. The car drove on by. It was one of Hartland's Lutheran ministers, Rev. Pastor, in his Buick. I nodded at the passing car, quite happy that it wasn't my wife.
The good Reverend hadn't gone far past me when he hit his brakes. He put his car in reverse, backed up and watched as I poured the contents of the bedpan into the gas tank of my pickup.
Rev. Pastor rolled down the window of his car and said, "Now that is what I call faith."
