As you all know, I was single a lot more years than I’ve been married.  And as a single woman, there were certain things that I did for safety reasons.  One of those was keeping a tank full of gas.  When I left home for my first job, my mom made me promise two things: 1) keep a tank full of gas, and 2) keep a blanket in the car in case you break down.  I’m sure she gave me other guidelines but I remember those two, probably because they fit with the situation I’m about to share.

My husband doesn’t have this obsession with the full tank of gas.  In fact, he will sometimes wait until the gas light comes on before filling up.  This I don’t understand.

Our philosophies came to a head yesterday when we had to pick up a colleague from the airport.  Hubby had taken me to the doctor earlier in the day and had commented that he needed to get gas before we left for the airport.  Well, somehow he never got around to doing it.  You can guess the rest of the story.

I was fiddling around on the computer grading papers and the time to leave for the airport sneaked up on me.  In a rush, I got myself together and headed out.  Hubby and I realized as soon as we got in the car that we had not gotten gas.  I suggested stopping at a local gas station before we left town.  Hubby declared that we could make it to the airport.

Though I was anxious about it, he turned out to be right.  We made it to the airport with a little time and very little gas to spare.  So we pulled into a gas station near the airport.  As hubby shut off the ignition, he made that sound he makes when things aren’t going right.  Guess what?  He had forgotten his wallet.  Guess what else? I hadn’t brought my purse.

So here we are at the gas station with no credit cards and no cash.  Well, I didn’t have any cash.  Turns out hubby had $4.50.  So we get $4.50 worth of gas and head to the airport to pick up my colleague.

Our car has a gauge that gives an estimate of how many miles we can get on the remaining gas.  It was close, but the numbers seemed to suggest that we could make it home.   Though my colleague offered to pay for gas for us, we decided to make it home on our fumes.

As we ride down the interstate, I’m watching the miles go down, down, down.  I breathed a sigh of relief when we made it to our exit, knowing my husband would pull into the first gas station and take my colleague up on his offer to pay for gas.

But no.  Hubby decides we can make it to his favorite gas station.  Unfortunately, about this time the mileage gauge reads “****”, not a good sign.  So we end up pulling into the next station (not my hubby’s favorite) and allowing our colleague to buy $10 worth of gas.

At this point, we are less than two miles from home, so we go by the house, pick up some cash and repay my colleague.  So all is well.

This is not the first time hubby and I have found ourselves with no money, no credit cards and no gas.  It happened once after church.  Fortunately, that time we were in town and stopped at hubby’s favorite station.  They know him there so they allowed us to pump and pay later.

So what did we learn from this?  Two things: 1) Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus when he comes to filling up the gas tank, and 2) Keep a $20 bill in the car at all times.

What’s embarrassing about this?  Just this week, hubby and I had been stressing to his daughter the importance of keeping gas in the car.

Another embarrassing thing? That colleague that we picked up at the airport was a job candidate.  Talk about making an impression.

This post continues my earlier post on how we spent the holidays in 2011.

Our second stop was to rescue my husband’s daughter’s car from its resting spot on I-94.  Yes, we had to get the car towed.  Nobody knew we were in town until we showed up, along with the tow truck and the car.   We were greeted with happy smiles.

We still had Christmas gifts for his grandchildren to buy so the next couple of days were spent shopping.  My husband found the toys and I found the educational gifts.  I ended up getting the LeapFrog “My Own Laptop” in violet for his granddaughter and in white for his grandson.

One of my husband’s sisters invited us to her Christmas dinner, which she held on Christmas Eve so her children and grandchildren could spend Christmas Day at their respective homes.  Hubby went over early in the day to help cook.  When he came to pick me up for dinner, he sorta fell asleep.  For a long time.  By the time he woke up and got back over there with his daughters, all the food was gone and so were the people.  He couldn’t believe it and neither could I.  The look on his face when he realized there really was no more food was too funny. I wish I could have captured that look with a camera.  Being the good husband and father he is, he bought his daughters Chinese and gave me the last serving of mac ‘n cheese and dressing.  It was delicious!

After dropping off the gifts for the grandchildren the next day, we had Christmas dinner with my husband’s older brother.  He cooked, we ate, and then we watched football on TV.  And my husband talked to various relatives who called during the day.  There were a lot of calls!

Since my brother-in-law also has grandchildren, he had a beautifully decorated tree and a family room full of toys.  When we got there one grandchild was banging on a drum set and the other was riding on some kind of cart.  I told my B-i-l he’d regret buying that drum set when his ear drums started hurting.  My husband and his brothers are all very good cooks so we ended up with plenty of leftovers to take back to the hotel.

The next day we spent with my husband’s mother.  We don’t get to see her as much as we see my mother so I was happy to spend some time with her.  She’s a sweet woman who has welcomed me with open arms into her family.

She lives in an assisted living building that I think is perfect for seniors.  Her apartment has a small kitchen area, but the facility also has a dining room where they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner.  Residents can cook for themselves, eat in the dining room or have their meals brought to their rooms.  The good thing is that my mother-in-law has made good friends in the building.  While we were there, one friend brought her over some cake the woman had baked.

The next few days were spent with my husband touching base with various family members and spending some time with his kids.  I went along on some of these visits, but not all of them.

On the day we left for home, we went to visit with his son and his family in Detroit.  This gave us a last visit with them and the grandkids.  Guess whose LeapFrog laptop was out of commission?  The grandson’s.

After that stop, we were headed back home.  We drove about five hours to our normal stop at the Holiday Inn Express in Carolton, KY.  Again, we paid with hotel points.

The next morning we began the last eight-hour leg back to Tuscaloosa.  We’d had a great trip but it was good to get back home.

My mom has already planned for us to spend Thanksgiving with her in Atlanta next year so I guess that’s what we’ll do unless we get an invitation from Michigan.  In that case, we’ll have to have a family holiday negotiation session.  Isn’t married life wonderful?