gaslight

There’s an old movie called Gaslight, where Ingrid Bergman plays a wife who is being driven crazy by a manipulative husband. He is in complete control of her environment, and convinces her that she is losing her mind by creating situations where she starts to believe she is indeed going crazy. Until she discovers, of course, that the reason why her gaslight on her bedroom wall dims every so often is that her husband is up in the attic searching for lost diamonds and turns the gaslight on up there, making her light go dim. There was a popular phrase for a while, where people said, “Are you gaslighting me?” meaning, “Are you trying to make me go crazy?”

It’s an interesting movie, but not the focus of this post. The focus of this post is the gaslight in my Fit. I have always been a slave to the gas tank, worried that if I let the level go to less than a quarter of a tank I would run out of gas shortly, be stuck on the side of the road, and die a slow death there. This was often a cause for debate between me and many of my passengers. “It’s only a quarter of a tank, you have plenty of time” to which I respond “But who knows how far the next gas station is??” I was terrified that the gaslight would come on and nobody could convince me to wait to get gas.

So lately I’ve been relaxing this rule for some reason. When it is at an eighth of a tank, I’ll say “I can go a few more miles …” However, the last three times I have filled my gas tank up, I have rolled in the gas station with the gaslight on — and the last time I was actually ON THE FREEWAY when the gaslight came on. And then drove nearly a mile til I found a gas station. I think I’m becoming terrified of seeing the gaslight again, it’s probably healthier.

Posted by Marie on August 5th, 2007 under Uncategorized

Leave a Comment

rss feed
About Marie


Archives:


August 2007
M T W T F S S
« Jul   Sep »
 12345
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Links