Wednesday, January 05, 2011

is the tank half empty or half full...


I have this mate, a lovely guy but a bit of a know-it-all, who always thinks he’s right about things no matter how often they turn out differently to what he expected. Hey, no harm in that though; certainly beats having no opinion at all.
Anyway, he and I needed to drive up to Cunts Nest (220 kms away), ostensibly to deliver some furniture to the beach house, so he rented a mid-sized van for the job and we set off with a full load in the back and a full tank of petrol.
We got there without a hitch, dropped the furniture off and immediately headed back home again…
About two minutes into the return drive he said to me, ‘Hey, do you think we can get home on half a tank of petrol ??’
I looked at the gauge, which was almost perfectly lined up with the vertical line showing the tank was either half-full or half-empty depending on the way you look at life.
‘I doubt it, mate.’
‘Why not ??’
‘Well, everyone knows the second half of the tank always seems to empty faster than the first half…some design flaw in the ballast needle or something.’
‘But we had a full load of furniture coming up and we’re empty for the return trip so that should cancel it out.’
‘Well, I suppose it might…but what’s the point of trying anyway ??
‘It’d be an interesting exercise…plus I would only have to fill the tank once more before I return the van if we can make it.’
‘And you’re prepared to risk running out of petrol somewhere on the freeway outside Sydney in order to test your hypothesis ??’
‘We won’t run out !!!’
‘We might.’
‘We won’t.’
‘Why even risk it ??’
‘Coz it’d be kind of cool to do it.’
‘Mate…jumping The Grand Canyon in this van would be cool…running out of petrol in it on the freeway would be a pain in the ass.’
‘We won’t.’
‘We might.’
‘No…fill the fucking tank up at the next station, you cunt.’
‘No, I want to see how far we can go…’

Now, at this point I should tell you something about my mate. Apart from being the most indomitable optimist I have ever met, he has a rather acute case of OCD with respect to certain things. He loves order…especially mathematical order. On the drive up he maintained a steady speed of 120 kph while in the 110 kph zone. I asked him why and he said the speed cameras were set with a 10% margin of latitude so that he was fine at this speed. The real reason he likes travelling at that speed is that it’s exactly two kilometers per minute and he can mentally compute his estimated time of arrival at a certain point much easier. Some people might call him ‘anal’, however I’ve never really understood the connection between the compulsive need for neatness and order…and the rather peculiar habit of storing things in your ass. So, I prefer to think of him as just a plain nutbag.
He's a cross between Biggles and your grandfather. Probably inventing some mythical boy's own adventure to replace the sheer mundaneness of this exercise, in which he's just bombed Berlin to smithereens in his Sopwith Camel and is scurrying back to England on half a tank of fuel with the entire Luftwaffe on his tail.
And I suppose part of me looked forward to the satisfaction of us running dry, so I could say 'Told you so,' and then have a two hour nap in the van while he flagged down a car and hitchiked to the nearest servo for a few litres of petrol, although I'm not sure it would have outweighed the aggravation of having to have a two hour nap in the van while he flagged down a car and hitchiked to the nearest servo for a few litres of petrol...
You see I figure life's too long to make it any more difficult that it needs to be !!!

‘Mate, please pull into the next servo and fill the fucking tank…I am not going to get stranded on the freeway because you see this as a major challenge.’
‘We can make it.’
He's Kramer in the episode where Jerry is thinking of buying the new Saab.
‘I don’t care about it enough to try.’
‘Well I do.’
‘Well you’re a cunt and I can see why your wife left you. I’d leave you right now if I had another way of getting home…’


To be cont’d very soon…

39 comments:

Fifi said...

errr...wish I'd been privy to this information about three months ago...

Anonymous said...

Can't wait to see who finishes first.

LẌ said...

Actually, I kind of like his 120 kph camera/time theory!

fingers said...

Frankie: you should have heard some of the disgusting information I was privy to on the drive.

Jen: I will because the silly cunt will probably run out of words just before the end.

xl: Then you're gonna love his later theory on fuel consumption...

Memphis said...

BamBam is the Rainman? Or Kramer? Kramer is banging Frankie? That's just SO WRONG!!!

Ms Smack said...

Hhahaaaa, you're like the odd couple.

Looking forward to the next instalment !

x

Fifi said...

fingers: well as long as it didn't include photos, I can live with that....

Fanny said...

Now I have a picture in my head of Fingers and Mr Magoo sitting up high in the van ... eyes 2cm away from the windscreen. Mr Magoo's eyes never leave the road as he argues with you.

.. surely Mr Magoo wouldn't share disgusting information?

Jayne said...

I have a sneaking suspicion that you're right fingers, altho' with yer mate's OCD observations & calculations, he might just make it. My ol' man does a similar kinda thing - needs juice for the car but will ignore 3 fillking stations on the 'other' side of the road cos they're 'inconvenient'. Drives me fucking nuts.

Electro-Kevin said...

Confused.

MommyHeadache said...

my tank is not only half empty someone has dumped a pound of sugar in it. I am an eternal pessimist even though I am as healthy as an ox, have no worries and a full head of hair. Go figure. You and Bam Bam must be yin and yang

KJ said...

Very clever blogging....sharing the load, so to speak.

It's like one of those progressive dinners- but who's place will we be having dessert at? Hmmmmmmmm.

Bambam said...

Ms Smack has it closest.... the Odd Couple. And I can assure you I'm easily the more NORMAL one!!

Steve, I'm nothing like Rainman or Kramer!!

As for you Fanny... Mr Magoo? Mind you, I used to love watching that cartoon.

emma said...

oops you did beat me to the kramer observation didn't you. this is too much work checking two blogs. can't you just try sharing an apartment where your ideas on housekeeping and lifestyles are as different as night and day....oh wait, smack beat me to the odd couple observation as well. wait, can't you just test out this riverting petrol theme while you travel across central australia in a giant bus, one of you on the roof wrapped in foil while the other one has a crisis over being a gay crossdresser all to the strains of 'we are family'...

oh wait. i give up.

can we just set up a betting ring and start the odds now?

i'm betting that because bam bam bam blogged it first that he would only do so in the interests of giving you a giant "fuck you, we made it" so i'm betting on him. if you had run out of petrol and been dumped on the side of the road there's no way he would have ever mentioned it again. OR you pulled a gun on him and charges are pending.

fingers said...

MS: I'll tell you what's wrong. Guys saying 'That's just so wrong !'. Take that dick out of your mouth immediately and man-up.

Smack: Conceptually we are but neither of us are really Felix or Oscar. I'm the neat freak but he was the one thrown out of home by the wife. On the other hand I can't see Oscar paddling Felix's butt at Scrabble.

Fanny: He looked so happy playing with his little horizontal steering wheel.

Jiney: You got it. The whole thing got stupider and stupider.

E-K: Where did you get up to before you lost the plot ??

Emmak: You have very good reason to be permanently alarmed.

Ute: Yeah we thought it might be a bit of fun to see a story from two sides.

Bam: Oh yes mate. Nothing wrong with you at all. Bahahahahahahaha !!!

emma: Actually I blogged first. I thought of the idea and I blogged it first. You just read his post first. I see what's gong on here. Consider yourself on double-secret probation...

Spiky Zora Jones said...

Finger...baby, weren't you the least bit interested. I mean the probability that it would make it back without running out of petrol was 50/50 chance. Where's that wild adventurous side of you, sweetie?

Not that I would do anything that stupid...I don't want to take a chance on getting stranded on a Australian road...you'll have insects that painfully kill with a slight bite or sting.

Here's some advice. And I'm surprised you haven't thought of it before...zap him with a taser. He'll pass out and most likely piss his pants but hey that's his worry...toss him in the back seat and when he wakes you'll be back in the city.

if he's krammer...you be jerry. if you think jerry would never do that to krammer then you be elaine bener. God know she'd do it just for shits and giggles.

and hey...if you're gonna be elaine, do that goofy dance elaine did every time she danced. :)

So what do you think...smart huh?

later baby. xxxx

JLee said...

I don't know about half empty or full, but I sure got tanked last night...

fingers said...

Spiker: I don't think 50/50 chances are all that wild. I prefer 20/80...or even better 1/99...which is why I still go on the odd date.

JL: Boom boom, baby...

emma said...

oh so posts really don't come into existence just cos i read them first? wtf......

then i'm changing my bet - you ran out of petrol.

Bambam said...

emma, emma, emma... always go with your first instinct!

emma said...

oh rats!

hang on.....you BOTH posted at 7.49pm on jan 5?

at the exact same moment????

there's no way for me to predict the outcome then.

wait, are you the same person like michael and latoya jackson?

Or just a schizophrenic??

fingers said...

emma: Spooky huh ?? Like one of those pre-planned simultaneous broadcasts in 10 places at once. Anyway I can assure you we are different people. Total opposites really. Like matter and anti-matter. Or in this case matter and doesn't matter...

emma said...

hang on...

so you two were on the phone like a couple of girls squealing "no you hit publish"..."no no YOU hit publish"...."nooooooo YOU hit publish!!!!"?

Bambam said...

We chat at work on Reuters Messenger (like any other kind of chat really)... believe it or not, I'm actually his client.

But his friend first and foremost, above any professional relationship, which is why he gets away with being such a cunt to me.

emma said...

saying you're his client makes him sound like a working gal...

but well played with synchronised publishing because now i don't have a hope in hell of guessing the outcome.

Mr Pineapples said...

Hey ...why if it aint ole Finger

The way you swear on your blog and use naughty words like f*** and c***

Is so radical. There's me thinkin you were Ozzie's answer to Cat-Weazel and here you are...a har man- swearer.

Gawd.....you impress..

Electro-Kevin said...

Fingers - please please please come over to my blog and give me some constructive criticism over a piece of creative writing I've done (The Power of Now)

I just know you will be kindly and gentle about it all.

Thanks, friend.

De Campo said...

Mathematical logic. Sure it works in practice, but does it work in theory?

fingers said...

MrP: Aw, I was really hoping you were going to be my first genuine troll and that we would spend 2011 locked in an epic struggle...but you're just looking for a bit of a cuddle, aren't you ?? Well, you're not gonna fucking get one here.

E-K: OK, I'm just constructing my criticism now. I'll be over as soon as it's done.

DeC: I bet that one gets a laugh down at the String Theory workshop...

Nicole said...

Will one of you just hurry up and finish the damn story ???

Miss LT said...

A similar "why your wife left you" comment earned me a few bruises, earned him a few back. When his wife came back begging to be taken back... and saw the bruises thought they were love marks...and left him again. :)

Memphis said...

Man up? Now I've got flashbacks of that Aussie actor running around shouting "Harden the fuck up" running through my head. I think I'll go to YouTube and watch the videos again.

Anonymous said...

You guys should get married.

UBERMOUTH said...

I loved this his and his accounts! How homoerotic. I hope there's a vid with the next clip!

UBERMOUTH said...

* post.

And don't make us wait too long eh, Fingers?

Anonymous said...

(continued from Bammers)
...but there's no way in fucking hell I'd ever intentionally get on the free way without a full tank of gas. I'm just not that excited about tempting fate. =]
The tank is always half empty!

xoxoxo

emma said...

come on!

or are you guys still waiting by the side of the road with a petrol can, living off grubs and low flying birds?

Jim Benton said...

that's my cartoon. original post on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/a4h58/how_do_you_see_things/

Jim Benton said...

hey that's my cartoon. original post on reddit: http://www.reddit.com/r/comics/comments/a4h58/how_do_you_see_things/