Like many parents, I too just returned from travel with my teenager over the Easter break. While the trip was billed as a "college road trip", and it was, it also served to assuage my burning wanderlust. I find if I stay couped up in my not-so-small-town too long, I start to go a bit stir crazy so it was with grand expectations of high adventure and escapism that we two set forth on our sojourn.

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Follow up:

Like many savvy travelers living in the New York metropolitan area, I looked forward to filling my fuel tank on the New Jersey Turnpike to avoid, in however small a measure, the usorious state taxes levied on gasoline in the chronically cash-starved state of NY. Viewed as a minor victory against taxation tyranny, it always makes me feel a bit the rebel "sticking it to" the state, so to speak. After a quick trip into the NJT Cranberry rest stop to pay nature a call and to pick up some mini Cinnabon treats for the trip, I pulled up to the gas pump to replenish my tank whose gauge was hovering between one half and three quarters full. To wait for a fuel stop closer to the terminus of the roadway would most assuredly have meant much longer lines as I am not the only traveller to take advantage of New Jersey's more reasonable fuel tax.

I was admittedly distracted by the lively conversation of my passenger and the allure of the sticky sweetness of Cinnabon when I handed my credit card to the fuel attendant and requested he fill the tank. A short time later he handed me the card, a charge slip I signed and a receipt for my 7.5 gallon fill up. Still distracted by conversation and a substantial sugar high from my unhealthy snack, we set off once again on our trek southward.

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It wasn't until we reached Maryland, about 65 miles from our Cranberry, NJ fuel stop, that I realized that my gas gauge was showing a level somewhere significantly south of three quarters full. Curious I thought, as I went on to check my "average miles per gallon" courtesy of the digital dashboad display. While it reassuringly told me I was getting 27 miles per gallon I couldn't help but feel that something was amiss as I should only have used a tad over two gallons to have covered the distance - especially at the gas gentle highway cruising speed I was maintaining. Perhaps overwintering the car wih minimal use had caused the guage to stick a bit, I surmised.

To test my theory, I pulled into the next gas station I came to, a rest stop in Maryland not more than 75 miles from my New Jersey fill up. Imagine my shock upon learning that this next fill up took 6.5 gallons! Had my mileage suddenly dropped to 11.5 miles per gallon or had something untoward happened in the fair state of New Jersy? Had my car developed some gas guzzling mechanical problem I could not discern? I was perplexed and pondered the situation over the next several days of travel, without resolution. On the trip home, still convinced I was a victim of some kind of pumpside sleight of hand, I managed to travel 165 miles on another 6.5 gallon fillup - in a mix of highway and stop-and-go traffic. Clearly the gas gauge was functioning properly, as were the car mechanics.

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I'll never know for sure what actually happened in the twightlight zone of the Cranberry rest stop because I was inattentive at the fuel stop but I learned a lesson. Our is not George H.W. Bush's "kinder, gentler nation" (or world) I had hoped to raise my children in. This is a Bernie Madoff ponzi scheme, bogus charity, senior citizen rip-off, nigerian internet scam letter, cellphone sexting world where everyone is a potential con artist and only the hyper-vigilant may remain unscathed - for a while.

I hate to think that we all accept this to be true nowadays - but I think we do. I yearn for a return to a time when the real purpose of the artificial routines of etiquette where understood; serving to bring civility to chaos by reining in human nature's unbridled bent to survive, fueled by a morally bereft drive of self-interest. I will strive to teach my children moral and just behavior where they recognize their part in a synergistic whole. I want that they should know how to strike a delicate balance by understanding that achievement need not be at the expense of others, so that they might pass it on to their children. This I must do outwardly, while inwardly I ramp up my degree of vigilance, to find I am constantly looking over my shoulder for those who wish to take advantage of me.

Are you with me?

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