sorry I don't have any cash.

Gas prices are ridiculous these days.

Now, I realize gas is significantly cheaper in America than in most other countries, but I still hate having to choose to buy a gallon of gas rather than a latte.

[The latte wins sometimes, much to my car's chagrin.]

I've come to find a relatively consistent way to circumvent this pricey petrol problem:
If I buy gas in a scary part of town, it costs around 10¢ cheaper per gallon.


And this is what brought me to a gas station in the heart of scariness of Nashville, Tennessee one fateful evening.



I'd lost track of time at work, and was running a bit behind to a dinner party. I had to fill up my gas tank in order to get there, so I stopped at a gas station.

No big deal, right? Wrong.

It all started when the gas pump wouldn't accept my card, so I had to go inside to pay.
Because I was in the ghetto, I double- and triple-checked that my car doors were locked.

See, it was important for my doors to be locked, because I was leaving all my belongings in my car while I ran inside to pay:
my computer, my iPhone, my coat, ...and my keys.

Yes, as I was closing the door, I realized that I was locking my keys in my car.
In the ghetto.
When I was already running late.

All I had with me was my credit card.

So I went inside to pay and call a locksmith. The plan was to pump my gas, then go back inside to wait for the locksmith.


Well. While I was pumping my gas, a strange man approached me.
He looked like a linebacker, which was intimidating, but as he was pulling on his hoodie, I noticed that he was wearing a tshirt with the Methodist church logo on it. He's a Christian, so that means he has to be harmless, right?

I watched with trepidation as this mysterious Christian man approached my locked car in the ghetto.
He explained that he always keeps a coat hanger in his car for this very purpose, and asked if I wanted his help. He wouldn't take my passive no for an answer, so he got his hanger and started trying to pick my lock.

I'll admit, I checked his body to see if I could find the outline of a gun or something. None.

A few minutes later, a 20-something-year-old Mexican guy with a mohawk came over to my car. He seemed to know a little more about breaking into cars than the Christian man did, so the Christian man assumed a new role: he was now an over-exuberant football fan encouraging his "team" (the Mexi-mohawk man) through means of enthusiastic diaphragmatic bellows.

The next few minutes were quite mysterious to me: I'll never know how he found out about this scene that was unfolding around my car, but a Mexi-friend of the Mexi-mohawk man pulled up in his souped-up yellow low rider and emerged with the proper tools for breaking into cars.


Now, I'm not trying to play into a stereotype here, but the two Mexi-men did seem to know a thing or two about breaking into cars.


But you guys. Can we please step back to take a look at the situation at hand?

I'm standing at a gas pump watching two complete strangers try to break into my car (and one very enthusiastic Christian cheering them on), and trying my best to be ok with the entire scene.

Does this seem strange to anyone else?


A few minutes later, yet another man appears. I'm not entirely certain where he came from, but I do remember one thing: he had fantastic hair. He looked to be in his mid-50s, and I still can't figure out for the life of me what he was doing in the ghetto. Men who have hair like Fabio generally hang out in different parts of town than the one I was in.

Fabio didn't know much about breaking into cars; he was mostly there for moral support. But he morally supported me, by golly. He faithfully stood next to me and watched the Mexican football team and their cheerleader break into my car.


About 45 minutes after this whole ordeal started, Mexi-mohawk man popped the lock, and the Christian man won the Super Bowl.

Hooray, right?
Well.
Simultaneously, the locksmith pulled into the gas station to open my door. When he realized that Mexi-mohawk man had just opened my car, he went completely ballistic.

Fabio fled.
Yellow low rider Mexi-man went back to his car.
Mexi-mohawk man went inside the gas station.
Christian man was nowhere to be found.

The locksmith, a wiry middle-aged middle-Eastern man, stormed over to the yellow low rider car and started cussing out the Mexi-man who was sitting behind the steering wheel.

I suddenly realized that the locksmith expected to be getting money from me, so I looked in my wallet and found three $5 bills. Even though that $15 could've bought a substantial amount of gas (or lattes), I decided the right thing to do would be to give the money to the locksmith to thank him for his time.


I timidly offered my money to the locksmith to try to rectify the Mexi-mohawk man's alleged transgression. The locksmith snatched my hard-earned five-dollar bills from my hand, ripped them into pieces, and promptly threw them in the garbage can.

Yes, the garbage can.

Idiot.


As soon as he threw away the pieces of my money, his countenance changed: he realized the error of his ways, screamed some expletives at the top of his lungs, got back in his locksmith van, and sped away. Yes, his tires squealed on the way out of the parking lot.

And the rest of us went along on our merry way.


And that, dear friends, is why I don't have any cash.