Two kinds of people

I finished up my meeting and let out a deep breath. I had a light meeting day for once and could go out and grab a bite to eat. I wouldn’t have to grab a yogurt and eat on the run. I could sit down for once and enjoy my lunch.

As soon as I got in my car, I recognized right away that I had to pull the seat back. My wife’s car had been in the shop and she had been driving mine. I’m a hair taller than my wife, but she keeps the seat as close as possible to the steering wheel, where I like more room for my legs. As I pulled out of the driveway, though, I noticed a bigger issue. She had left the gas gauge on E.

I looked aghast at the gauge. The car would run out of gas in less than 20 miles. Let me repeat that 20 miles, 20 miles, not 120 miles, but 20 miles. In my brain, I was seeing flashing red emergency lights and a calm voice saying: “Urgent, urgent, evasive action required, car will destruct in five minutes.” If I wouldn’t have known any better, I would’ve thought I was trapped on an episode of Star Trek on the distressed U.S.S. Enterprise and I had to do my best Captain Kirk impression and needed to find a way to save my ship! Oh wonderful!

Caution to the wind

Some people love living on the edge, they’re the ones who like to put everything on the spin of the Roulette Table. They say things like “let’s put everything on black!” They like to play with fire and pay little attention to the gas gauge, the check engine light, and stop only in dire need. Let’s call them what they really are: they’re bloody heathens.

Oh, we all have people like this in our lives. They’re friends and loved ones. You might even be one of these people. They’re the same people who jump out of a perfectly good airplane; go bungee jumping with only half the necessary ropes and buckles; drive over 110 mph on a back country road; attempt to free climb up Yosemite’s El Capitan without ropes or safety gear; and get too close to the edge at the Grand Canyon. Oh, I like a good thrill as much as the next person. Roller coasters, sign me up. Need me to travel somewhere? Count me in. I love to fly. Wanna go climb a mountain? Oh, I’m in, I love it, but these people are crazy.

Oh, don’t let these people fool you. My wife says she always has the gas under control. She says I overreact. Hmm, 20 miles? That doesn’t sound like “under control” to me, that sounds like “Oh, I’ll let the love of my life, my soulmate, my sucker husband handle this for me.”

On the other hand, you have me. I’m the ever sturdy engineer Scotty telling Kirk in a thick Scottish accent: “I’m givin’ her all she’s got, captain! I don’t think she’s gonna hold much longer.”

I had a 30-plus mile one way commute to work for years and I had a regular routine where I would stop for coffee at a convenience store near my house every morning (yes, I’m a Wawa-person) and grab gas every other day or so. It was like clockwork. You could set your watch to it.

I never liked to let the gas gauge get too low, because you never knew what might happen: I might get stuck in traffic. I tended to take the back roads and there weren’t a lot of places to stop for gas. Another day, I might be running behind.

And you know what, I never got stuck along the side of a busy highway or empty country road without gas. These crazy people, though, they thrive on living on a prayer. Jon Bon Jovi eat your heart out. You’ve got nothing on these people.

The simple things

We tend to think of the world as huge, crazy place, and it can be, but I’ve noticed lately, thanks to my gas example, that there really are small differences that separate us. Disneyland’s “It’s a Small World After All” ride explains this to a T.

“It’s a world of laughter,
A world of tears,
It’s a world of hopes,
And a world of fears.
There’s so much that we share,
That it’s time we’re aware,
It’s a small world after all.

It’s a small world after all,
It’s a small world after all,
It’s a small world after all.”

The list: Two kinds of people

In fact, I’m convinced the world is broken down into two kinds of people:

—People who fill the car’s gas or electrical charge back up to full at a reasonable level and people who play with fire and test the car’s ability to operate on fumes.

—People who wing vacation planning, determined to let plans happen when they happen, willy-nilly like, and than people who map out their plans and savor their time away.

—People who flit in-and-out like they are the life of the party and the introverts who prefer more in-depth, one-on-one conversations.

—People who talk loud and on their phones around others and people who respect others and talk normally.

—Those who read the Ikea furniture instructions right away and those who throw caution to the wind and make it up as they go along. Hmm, I definitely know some of these people — in both camps.

—People who think about others first and people who think first about themselves.

—People who chew the end of their pencil and those who don’t.

—People, who when the bell ding dings, root for the Champion, the Apollo Creeds of the world, and the people who naturally root and cheer for the underdog and the Rocky Balboas in our lives.

—Those who leave the blinds closed, sitting in the dark and those who welcome their Vitamin D and open the blinds and windows and let the light shine in.

—People who eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and people who prefer Lebanon bologna sandwiches with chips in the middle.

—People who set one alarm time and get up right away at the crack of dawn and people who set five different ones, hitting the snooze button each time, and who rush into work five minutes before the start of the workday.

—People who leave the pizza crust and people who eat the entire slice.

—People who start their mornings drinking coffee and people who start their mornings with a tropical kale and strawberry smoothie.

—People who love to get behind the wheel and drive whether it’s a speedy sports car or a plodding truck and people who prefer to leave the driving to others.

—People who need to write everyday or the feel lost and people who can’t wait for AI to come and solve all their problems and make their writing “look pretty.”

Which group of people do you fit into? Whichever one, always remember to never let the gas on Empty! (For the record, in this instance, I got my car to the nearest gas station and filled it up, but not before worrying the whole trip that I was going to be stranded along the road.)