Friday, May 25, 2018

The Booster truck lurks in the parking lot down in Silicon Valley, seeking empty gas tanks to fill.


Photographed in the wild by the daughter who works down there, they'll fill your car with gas, check the tire pressure and wipe your windshield all while you work inside.  Her company will pay for the service, although you've got to cough up for the gas.  Not something you'd likely see in Peoria.

8 comments:

  1. CW, just wait until you see what they have in mind for dead EVs!

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  2. Do you stop working, walk out to the parking lot and flag them down, or how does that work?

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    1. The company has an account. You call and tell them what parking spot you're in, and what you want them to do. They show up while you're inside working, and do the deed. You come out to a car with clean windows, aired up tires, and a full tank.

      I checked and they don't work in Sacramento. Too practical and level headed a town, I guess, to support their business model there.

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  3. I miss the guy in the Texaco Fire Chief kaki uniform who not only pumped the 25 cents a gallon gas into my dad's tank, but checked the oil, battery and washed the front and back windows without being asked. Then he (it was always a he) went into the small office area to make change for the $2 my dad gave him and brought it back along with a sheet of S&H Green stamps to boot.

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    1. Hey, That was me! At least almost - I had an Esso uniform, but the rest applied, including the green stamps (I still have some of those in a wooden box on my dresser, leftovers from back then. I guess those stamps were the predecessor to all the rewards programs we have today, weren't they?). While we checked the oil we also looked at the fan belts to see if they were cracked. And we all jockeyed for position when the little lady who lived around the corner was due to come in, since she gave good tips. And ALL the windows were CLEANED, not just smeared with dirty rags. And we had the 'bug pads' that we used to get the bugs off the windshield - they got baked on in summertime Dallas heat and required that extra abrasiveness and elbow grease. I still remember the smell created by the bugs on this pads - not horrible but acridly distinctive. We all carried the spray bottles around by hooking the spray handle in our pants pocket - and we frequently were sneaking up behind one of the other grease monkeys and surreptitiously spraying the back of their pants with a stream of windshield cleaning fluid - when done correctly, they wouldn't immediately notice it. Only a few seconds after you moved on, they'd yelp and curse. Only the most bold would do that to the station manager!

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    2. My Goodness! Green stamps! .25 cent a gallon gas! You guys have me awash in warm memories.

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    3. Heck, when I was staying with my grandparents circa 1949 there was a gas station across the street owned by a couple who lived in a 2 bedroom house above the office area. The station still had in place (but not used) the gravity feed, glass top pumps and a couple of grease pits the car drove over to have work done. No hydraulic lifts then.

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  4. Memories. Never saw my Dad more frustrated than when we were driving from L.A. to Santa Barbara and there was a gas war on.

    He'd started with a full tank of 23c/gal gas, but on the way gas was down to 4c/gal. We stopped twice just to top it up, but you can't fill more than the tank holds!

    Now I'd just be glad if the gas would drop below $3/gal. Doesn't look like it will, though.

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