Who Else Remembers Their Southern Grandpa Keeping a Gas Station Notebook in the Car?

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Now that the entire world has evolved into one particular huge technological megacosm, we can generally fail to remember about the time before smartphones, Netflix, and on the web banking existed. That is, right up until we are strike with recollections of our moms making use of a phone connected to the wall or balancing a checkbook by hand. Among all those imprecise recollections of a simpler period is a fairly perplexing apply recognized as the gasoline station notebook. If you you should not keep in mind it, enable us paint the picture.

It can be any 10 years in advance of the 2000s. You are in the backseat of the motor vehicle having fun with a dipped cone from Dairy Queen. Your parent or grandparent—most very likely your grandfather who also transpires to like sneaking in a Dairy Queen dipped cone prior to dinner—pulls up to the fuel station and asks in a Southern drawl for a person of the attendants to kindly fill up the gas tank. (Indeed, they would fill it up for you.) Then, he or she pulls out a tiny notebook and starts off writing mysterious numbers, logging the facts absent for a future time that by no means seemed to arrive. So, what is the intent of a gasoline station notebook?

Basically, it is really made use of as a log reserve to record mileage, how a lot fuel went in at each and every support, how a great deal cash was put in, and etcetera. This information and facts could be saved on hand for causes this kind of as to maintain observe of gas financial state of the automobile, assure that the amount of gas extra matches up with the amount of funds invested, as nicely as to validate credit score card statements afterwards.

Now, did we ever see grandpa basically use that notebook and its painstakingly arranged details afterwards on? Not when. Did he go on to carry it out every single time we went to the gas station? You bet. Does he say that it would be irresponsible not to do it? Of training course. It really is just one of individuals Southern dad things—like owning a nap chair.

With all the gizmos and gizmos within present-day tech-savvy cars and trucks, a gas station notebook might no more time be important. (Was it ever?) Just really don’t explain to grandpa.