Little blue car strikes again!

"We should stop on the way back to school and put some petrol in the car," says my fellow teacher as we exit the Uber-Fancy Local Fashion Thing (UFLFT). I nod, still smiling about something hilarious one of my students said. It's nice when your Friday lunchtime three-hours-back-to-back students make you smile. Also it's nice when you finish and the sun is out and you know you only have one more lesson later today, and plenty of time to plan it, and even time for a coffee.

The other teacher is recounting something hilarious that one of her students said as we start the car and head out of the parking lot. (Her students, evidently, are hilarious, too.)

It is not until we are out of the parking lot and trundling along the main, tree-lined driveway of the UFLFT (the UFLFT is quite big) that Fellow Teacher stops mid-sentence to say "we have no petrol left." I find this to be an odd sort of statement, given that we have just established our plan to go and get some on the way back from school.

"No, I mean, really none left," she says, apparently using her mind-reading capabilities to discern my skepticism. I realize over the next few seconds that this means we will have to actually stop the car. Right here in the tree-lined driveway of the UFLFT.

Crap.

Once the poor little blue car (yeah, still the same one, thanks for asking) has ground to a halt (uh, literally), I am surprisingly efficient. I call the secretary to ask her to come and retrieve us, preferrably with some gas. I pull out a book and swiftly plan my next lesson. Conveniently, it is located right here at the UFLFT in two hours' time, so I could easily just walk back up the driveway and teach it, if I have to.

We pass the time exclaiming repeatedly how ridiculous a situation this is to be in, and imagining what our students would say if they could see us. We are happy that it is no longer lunch hour, so hopefully they are all safely ensconced in their offices, and not within view of the driveway. (Yay trees.)

When the secretary gets here, it transpires that the gas station was unwilling to sell her any gas without the proper receptacle. Like a car. Or a gas tank. Yes, well.

"Can we just leave the car there in the driveway?" we ask the man in the little guardhouse. "It's not really blocking anything much. And it's not broken or anything. It's just that we ran out of gas, you know." He looks hesitant, but we promise to come right back and he finally agrees. Probably months of rolling down our windows just enough to shout "lezioni d'Inglese!!" in his general direction, using more volume than correct pronunciation, have convinced him that we are well and truly mad.

We elect to go to the biggest gas station we can find, and are happy to discover that they do, indeed, have receptacles specially designed for idiots who have run out of gas somewhere and also do not happen to own portable gas tanks, or whatever the proper thing is to resolve such a situation. The specially designed receptacles are massive bags of thick-ish but clear plastic. This allows you to hold 5 liters of gas in your hands and also be able to see it! Fun! (Did you know that gas is a weird turquoise greenish-blue? I did not know this, but now I do! Yay!)

It's also a bit unnerving. I mean, what if it spontaneously combusts while it's sitting in your lap? I feel like I am inept enough, when it comes to cars, to cause spontaneous combustion of gas, particularly if the only thing between it and us is a plastic bag. Hm.

We arrive back at the UFLFT, having rather miraculously avoided combustion, and discover that the fun is not over yet. Now we need to maneuver 5 liters of bright bluish-greenish gas into the tank of the little blue car, all while standing in the middle of the driveway.

"What do you want to bet one of our students drives by?" I say to the other teacher. I have a knack for making it rain on a perfectly sunny day by saying things like this, and, indeed, not five minutes passes before a lovely light-grey Audi rolls calmly past, bearing one of my students. He's only the head of the Technical department or something like that. You know. Whatever. He cranes his neck to look at us as he drives by, looking confused. Happily, I am on the other side of the car at this point, so to this day we reassure ourselves that he didn't recognize us.

This is good, because I am at this moment standing next to the gas tank with my arms wrapped around the bag of gas, attempting to aim it into the tank rather than spill it all over my feet. It's going reasonably well (not easy when you're wearing spindly heels - for the teaching of the fashion people, you see - but are significantly taller than the car even without heels) but it is far from graceful.

A few minutes later, we are on our way back to school with yet another ridiculous story to tell.

"Okay, so, we need to not tell our students about this, ever, okay?" we promise each other.

"Yes, definitely."

They all know within the week. Naturally. I still occasionally get teased about it. Sigh.