you know how it’s impossible to carry a food tray and still look cool? well, today i discovered that it’s also impossible to carry a plastic gas can on the street and not look like a complete loser and failure.

what’s more embarrassing is that when my car wouldn’t start this morning, i immediately thought it must be the fact that i’m 500 miles overdue for an oil change. the fact that i haven’t put gas in my car in over a week didn’t even occur to me.

granted, my gas gauge is a little wonky so i have to estimate a bit, but nonetheless, a person who lets their gas dwindle to fumes and then acts puzzled when their car doesn’t start is to me just as much of a failure as someone who goes into work and forgets that they left their child in the car all day.

ok, ok, so being a loser or a complete failure is one thing, hopefully a private thing. but when you’re at a gas station and inserting a gas nozzle into a red plastic can instead of a gas tank, when you’re standing there carless in a spot where a car should be, you have learned a very public shame. and then, when you’ve dispensed your two gallons and you’re walking to your car past a bunch of people in their responsibly-fueled cars and you’re holding the bright red proof of your failure and negligence, there is absolutely no way to make yourself seem even the slightest bit less of the raging loser you so obviously, irrefutably are.

this is what i learned today on an otherwise gorgeous day in LA: gas tanks have a limit, but humiliation can be bottomless.