Childhood Epiphany

Childhood Epiphany

I was about five years old when a short series of events occurred that started with what I thought was a really great idea. When I grew up, I realized that I had experienced my first ‘epiphany’.


On a warm, sunny Saturday morning, I managed to tear myself away from ‘The Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Show’ long enough to try to wake my mom up. I didn’t know when she had come home the night before, because the baby-sitter had put me to bed around ten o’clock, and Mom still hadn’t come home.

I think she must have gone to another 'grown-up party’ and stayed out real late, ‘cause her clothes were strewn all over the place, and she usually puts everything away before going to bed.

After trying many times, I managed to wake her up, although she didn’t seem too happy. Her eyes were red, and her breath smelled awful.

“Jen-Jen, let Mommy sleep a little longer, ok? I don’t feel good.”

“But Mommy, you said yesterday that we might go out and do something today.”

“Okay, I know. Just let me sleep for a couple more hours, and if I have enough gas in the car, I’ll take you to the movies, deal?”

“Oh...can we have pizza too?”

“Maybe, if I have enough gas to last me next week, okay? Now go watch your cartoons and eat your cereal. I’ll get up in a while.”

Hanging my head in sad resignation, I moped back to the TV just in time to see Wile E. Coyote go sailing off a cliff wearing a rocket powered backpack made by Acme. “Beep beep”, said the Roadrunner, before he took off down the road.

When will that coyote learn? Oh well, time for a bowl of Cheerios.

We had bananas too, and you could cut one up into your Cheerios, put two or three spoonfuls of sugar on top, and boy was that tasty!

As I sat there eating my cereal, I started wondering what movie we could go see and how nice the pizza was going to taste. Then I remembered that all of those good times depended on the car having enough “gas”. I sure hoped it did, because I really wanted to go to the movies. But what if there wasn’t enough gas?

The more I thought about this, the more worried I began to be. I knew the movie theatre and Shakey’s Pizza were way far away. Too far to walk to. I started thinking real hard.

Just a few houses away up the street on the corner was an 'Arco' gas station. I liked going to the Arco because they gave away little plastic animals for Noah’s Ark. I was building a good collection. Maybe I could walk up there and trade some of my collection for gas!

But how would I get the gas home? Then I remembered - there was an old metal gas can in the garage that I could take with me! Yes! Mommy would wake up and find out she had plenty of gas, and we could go to the movies and pizza! Hooray, what a great idea!

I finished eating and ran past the TV to go get dressed. “…Road Runner! Coyote’s after you! Road Runner! If he catches you, you’re through!”

I changed out of my ‘jammies' into my favorite overalls. There was a large blue ‘Eeyore’ patch on the front. I had just learned to tie my own sneakers, so after doing that, I ran outside over to the garage.

After turning on the light, I quickly found the metal gas can, grabbed it by the handle, and ran down the driveway to the sidewalk. I kept on running all the way to the Arco on the corner. Then I realized that I had forgot my plastic animals. There were lots and lots of grown ups using the hoses to put gas in their cars. Most were putting the hose spouts into holes on the sides of the cars, some were putting the gas into holes over the back bumpers, and one man was putting a hose right into the front of the motor. As I saw him, he was just finishing up. He closed the hood of his car, and the hose he was using went back to its hole all by itself!

After he got into his car and started it up, I went over to the hose he was using and pulled on it. It was hard to pull out, but I was strong enough. I squeezed the handle on the end of the hose to see if there was any gas left in it. Yes sir, it squirted right out!

I couldn’t open the gas can, but there was a long nozzle sticking out, so I squirted the gas from the hose down into the nozzle. Pretty soon the can seemed to be real heavy, so I let go of the hose and - ‘whoosh’ - it went back into its hole where it came from. I noticed my hose was the only one that went back into its box all by itself. I had the best hose at the Arco!

After walking back home as quick as I could, I decided the easiest place on mommy’s car to pour the gas into was the hole under the little door on the side of the car. So that’s where I poured it. ‘Glug glug glug’, soon all the gas was in and I proudly put the gas can back into the garage.

I walked back into the house and washed my hands at the kitchen sink. Boy, were they dirty!

“The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show” was just ending, but “Foghorn Leghorn” was coming on next. I tell you, that big rooster was the funniest thing on TV!

Pretty soon I heard the water running in the shower, and knew that Mommy was up. Yay!

She finally came out, all dressed up, and started a pot of coffee.

“Well, I see you didn’t waste any time getting ready to go,” she said to me.

I just smiled.

“Okay, I’m going to go see how much gas I have. Be right back.” She grabbed her keys and went outside. I watched her through the front window. She got inside the car, did something with the keys and sat there for a minute looking at the dials on the dashboard. Then she got out and came back in.

“Looks pretty good, kiddo. Let me have a cup of coffee and we’ll go see what’s playing at the theatre.”

“Yayyyyy!” I shouted.

A little while later we were in the car and started to back out of the driveway when all of sudden - ‘chugga, chugga chugga, kaplooey!’ The motor made some odd noises and stopped working.

“Oh no, what now?” Mommy asked. For the next few minutes she tried to start the car over and over. Sometimes it sounded like it was going to start, then it stopped again.

Finally, she gave up, got out and opened the hood. I got out too.

Mommy stood there staring at the motor with her hands on her hips, shaking her head. “Oh sheesh, I don’t know what’s wrong. Looks like we have plenty of gas. I never heard it make such noise before. Let’s go see if Mr. Bradford can help us.”

Mr. Bradford was the old man who lived next door with his wife, and he often helped us out fixing things or working on the car for us. My daddy was in the Navy, and wasn’t home often, or for very long.

So, sure enough, Mr. Bradford was home, and he came right over. He listened to the motor as Mommy kept trying to start it up. I heard him mumbling to himself, “…the carb, the choke, intake ain’t right…”, then he began taking stuff off of the motor.

“Whatcha doin?” I asked.

“Taking off the air filter so’s I can look at the carb”, he replied. “O.K. try starting it again!” he yelled to my mom. And she did.

‘Ra rerrrrr rerrr rerr’, the motor tried to start but didn’t finish starting. Mr. Bradford kept poking his fingers at some things on top of the motor, then rubbed his fingers together as he looked at them. Then he smelled his hand, and shook his head.

“Hey Di,” (my mom’s name is Diane but some grownups called her “Di”), “you drive through any big puddles lately?”

“No, not that I remember,” she replied.

“Well, guess what? You got water in your fuel lines, and I’m gonna have to flush your whole system.”

“What?” Mom was suddenly asking lots of questions. “How did that happen? How long will that take?”

“Should only take a couple hours. But you know, I did see Jen walking past my house with a gas can earlier…….”

“JENN-I-FER !” My mom yelled from behind the steering wheel. And I thought, Uh-Oh. Did I do something bad?

While Mr. Bradford worked on the car, I had to walk down to the Arco with my mom and show her the ‘special’ hose that I had used to fill up the gas can. And that’s when I learned the difference between ‘gasoline’ and water hoses. I thought I was going to be grounded, but Mom just started laughing, and she laughed for a long time.

We didn’t go to the movies, but she did take me out for pizza that night when the car was “flushed”.

I learned a lot that day, especially that not all ‘great ideas’ or ‘brilliant revelations‘, or ‘strokes of genius‘, or ‘epiphanies’ as they are sometimes called - should be acted upon.