Running on fumes

Last night was our first marital running-out-of-petrol drama.  It happened under near textbook conditions: after dark (10:30 pm), in cold weather (-9C or 15F), without cell phones, and after a stressful day (building inspection day for the house).  Happily we were on a downhill slope, less than a mile from the apartment complex, where the Escort was sat waiting, complete with a never-used petrol canister.

The last time I did that was when I was seventeen, shortly after Mum and Dad had bought a silver Austin Metro 1.3S.  The fuel gauge was stuck on full and it conked out on my first drive, at a junction.  I had to run home and fetch the petrol container we kept for the lawn mower.  It and the car ran on four star, leaded petrol.  I loved that car.  When we got it, the boot/trunk lock was welded so it only opened from the inside, the spare tire was missing, there were blood stains and pheasant feathers in the tire well,  scorch marks on the glass of one of the back windows, a rattle in the dashboard that occasionally popped out a little lead air gun pellet when you went round a corner, and the battery for a much bigger car, which gave it amazingly good headlights.  The previous owner must have been a poacher, with a day job as a welder.