I have this thing about doing things I’ve never done before. It’s a fear of messing up, of looking stupid, of not doing it right. Is that anxiety? It feels like it’s anxiety. Or some other mental defect.

Anyway, I’ve been a licensed driver for about nine and a half years. I didn’t get that privilege until I was almost 30. If it hadn’t been for my In Laws wanting to move, I would still be carted around like a stressed chihuahua in a dog stroller, unwillingly. But I would be saving a lot on gas.

And to be completely transparent The Spouse is the number one reason why I’m legally mobile. He’s the only one who consistently put me in the drivers seat learn.

Since the beginning of my time as a driver, Spouse has been getting my gas. It started as free gas for employees and their spouses at his work. That went away, and I started having to buy it.

I had a tiny Chevy Cobalt so it was much cheaper but that’s beside the point.

It’s been a while, so my memory is foggy, but one of my first days driving, my car was low on gas so stopped and pulled up to the pump. I think the check engine light came on so I ended up calling my husband. I remember thinking first that it would figure that something would go wrong with the car as soon as I started driving it and then thinking of course I have to call my husband when need help. Eventually he showed up and we figured it out. He ended up pumping gas that day and from then on.

I will not go into detail but it has recently been brought to my attention that my inability to learn how to do something as simple as pump my own gas is more than just inconvenient.

It is however worth mentioning that someone is an enabler and never forced the issue nor will they use their big words and say what they are really thinking. But I digress.

How to pump your own gas.

(If you pay at the pump like the anxiety-ridden anti-social queen you are)

1. Insert Card, remove card when prompted.

2. Remove nozzle or press the button of your gas choice.

3. Do the other thing you didn’t do

4. Insert nozzle into tank. But do it just right or you’ll be afraid you are gassing the pavement.

5. There’s a little flicky thing that will hold the trigger on the nozzle. Proceed to feel like an idiot while trying to figure this out.

6. Watch the count on the pump to see how much you’ve pumped

7. Nope your nozzle fell out. You gotta really shove that in there. There ya go.

8. Once it’s in there right you don’t have to hold it. But you are going to hold it anyway because that whole “gas is expensive and you don’t want to make concrete flammable”.

9. WHAT IS THAT DRIPPING WHY IS THERE DRIPPING?! THERE SHOULD NOT BE A DRIP COMING FROM UNDER YOUR TRUCK (said dripping was in fact just water dripping from the bed of the truck from rain).

10. The tank is still filling at the same rate hopefully we can pretend it’s fine.

11. Gas fumes kinda make ya woozy.

12. Getting close now. Put your finger on the flippy thing so you can stop the gas flow when you need to.

13. How does this thing—oh it stopped. Right at $50. Luckily that’s as far as you needed it to go. Remove the nozzle. It’s heavier than you think.

14. Worry you’re going to accidentally squirt gas all over yourself and the surrounding area a la Zoolander.

15. Replace the nozzle in the nozzle’s home. Yes, it goes there it’ll sit, just, yeah you got it.

16. Yes you want your receipt. Gotta have proof you paid and didn’t just take off without paying. Yes, of course the people inside know you paid, you’re not going to have cops surrounding you before you get back on the main road, chill out.

17. Start the vehicle after double checking that your receipt is right and seeing how full that actually got your tank.

18. Drive away wondering if you’re just gonna outright tell Spouse that you did it yourself, or wait until he asks if you need him to go get your gas and just tell him no. You instead just wordlessly hand him the receipt and say nothing else.

Oh wait, there’s supposed to be life lessons.

I want to say that it is no one person’s fault that I never pumped my own gas. If I am not made to do something I am whole-heartedly NOT GOING TO DO IT.

Plus I’m an adult and no one is the boss of me. Except the 17 managers with a higher pay grade than me at work. But that’s beside the point.

I have learned to do a lot of things myself. I’ve installed a ceiling fan, a dishwasher and a doggie door. I’ve put oil and washer fluid in my car and my truck. Most recently I changed a fuse in my truck in order to make the washer fluid sprayer work. Now it’s doing something else, but again, beside the point.

The point is, I learned those things out of necessity, and because I knew it wasn’t going to get done if I didn’t do it myself.

I pumped my own gas out of SPITE. Pure, old fashioned, unadulterated, unreasonable spite. Not because I wanted to do it, not because I knew I wouldn’t have gas if I didn’t do it. But because I suddenly felt, for reasons I will not reiterate, like asking for that one thing made me feel like a burden. Because suddenly the one thing that someone else had always done for me was suddenly verbalized as a burden.

So out of spite I will not ask for that one thing again. Simply put.

The lesson here is: do not learn from me. Why? Because spite is one of those terrible things, much like hate—a similar feeling—a poisonous emotion that can eat away at you. It’ll corrode your insides, your mind, your heart, like acid on flesh. It’ll burn you and leave you scarred. And it’s ugly. Once you learn spite and hate they stain you.

I am already stained from years and years of hating myself and situations I put myself in, so I’m already ruined on the inside.

Other important lessons here may include: do things in spite of anxiety: Pump your own gas, it wasn’t that hard, you just hate the feeling you get dealing with new things. Make your own doctor appointments, phone calls won’t kill you. Use your big words, no one will know how you feel if you don’t tell them, and it’s important to say something before you explode. Also, don’t do like me and shut your mouth when no one listens or cares.

You’re problems are not bigger or worse than anyone else’s, everyone copes with their own problems differently than everyone else. Do not compare yourself to other people because everyone is different.

And get a blog where you can shoot ridiculousness out of your ears and those closest to you won’t know a thing because they don’t read it.

Oh and a classic:

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