Masculinity at the Pump
Basically, F all you a-holes at the La Costa 7-Eleven
Caretaker Chronicles 2.13.21
My mother asked me to take her ancient Volvo for a drive. Letting an old car sit for a long time is bad for the car. It was also empty of gas, so we needed to fill it. She only fills the Volvo 1/4 to 1/2 of the tank because the old Volvo sits most of the time—she has a newer car for trips to the store or the doctor. You shouldn’t let an old car sit with a full gas tank. Mom has Deep Sentimental Feelies for this car, so we need to Caretake the Volvo. Mop its brow. Make it a coconut curry.
So I threw mom in the Volvo (like a potato sack, or a flour sack, or just a sack) and we drove up the Coastal Highway 101, which is a not-terrible thoroughfare of corny business that occasionally turns into the beach and then back to corny businesses. (It is here that I will state that I worship at Juanita’s Taqueria on this very thoroughfare. They make the most divine burrito in all of California, and I mean that. At times, I have eaten my Juanita’s burrito in the style of a French gourmand consuming the ortolan, with a napkin on my head to hide my shame from God. Although it’s just a cheap paper napkin and not, you know, a French gourmand napkin. Anyway, Juanita’s is not corny, it is holy.) Corny businesses include various hair salons, cheesy bro bars that cater to surfers, bro bars that cater to men who think they’re surfers but aren’t, the amusingly-named Surfy Surfy Coffee Coffee (Surfy Surfy is the surf shop, Coffee Coffee sells coffee), and the un-corny Lou’s Records, site of some of my teenage musical commerce.
Apparently, there is a 7-Eleven on La Costa Blvd that has gas that’s four cents cheaper than gas near the house, so we pull in to pour gas into the aged, sensitive Volvo. Word has gotten around the community that this is the place to get gas, so we are in line and have to wait. While we are sitting there, all manner of GIANT-ASS TRUCKS start coming at us, cutting in line, backing up next to the pumps at a clip way too fast, all of these enormous trucks commandeered by men who appear to have some testosterone they need to offload and are taking it out on the patrons of this particular gas station.
My mom, who has cancer, feared for the integrity of her vintage Volvo. If one of these fucks so much as made a baby scratch in the paint, then it would be seemly for me, as the daughter and caretaker of not only the mom but the Volvo, to get out and start whacking on a menacing vehicle with the butt end of a squeegee or something.
I had spent part of the morning flipping through Tinder to amuse myself. I don’t actually want to meet anyone who lives in this dink-o city, so this was largely anthropological and out of boredom. And I have to say, of the major markets in which I have spent some times swiping Tinder (L.A., San Diego, Austin, and Portland), San Diego men really, really, REALLY have some unsavory (to me) predilections, such as:
*Photos of abs, often with gym equipment in the background
*Photos of stacks of hundred dollar bills
*Photos of luxury cars that may or may not belong to the dude in question
*Photos of said dude aiming a rifle at a target
*The phrase “I’m an alpha male.”
*The unanswered question, where did you obtain access to a tank?
It’s no secret that I feel that the collective IQ drops several percentage points when one leaves Los Angeles County. For you brainiacs who have read, nay, consumed the entirety of Douglas Coupland’s body of work, you will recall that DC refers to LA as a place with a high number of smart people. DC is absolutely correct about that, and he wrote Miss Wyoming, the novel that I am referencing, over twenty years ago.
I also feel like since I’m carting around an old lady with cancer who just wants 1/4 of a tank of gas for her old Volvo that she can’t bear to part with even though she rarely drives it and these fuckwads are tormenting her with their entitlement and impatience that I should DO SOMETHING. I was revving up to have words (words!) with one of these unmasked (natch) masculiniturds who really needs a 4WD four-door pickup to drive his ass to buy White Claw at Vons in Oceanside because God forbid we think he’s not more manly than every other dink-o dude in the 760 area code. And just WATCH THE FUCK OUT if this spilled out onto my AILING MOM or her VOLVO. I was protecting not only my mother, but also the integrity of her favorite car!
This made me grumpy.
In the end, verbal fisticuffs were not to be had. The Volvo was not scratched. Mom was perturbed, but she was ultimately okay and we got fancy salads at the hippie restaurant after.
The Volvo is a station wagon model and it fishtails and does not take speed bumps in a subtle way. So the entire way back down the 101, it caught a little air every time we hit a bump. “BOOMP,” I said each time, to mark the occasion. And then, mom and I fell a little bit into our seats. BOOMP.
And that’s all for today.
Juanita’s Taco Shop, 290 N Coast Hwy 101, Encinitas, CA 92024, (760) 943-9612
Open seven days a week, $