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I am not a gas station attendant.

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  • #31
    Quoth greek_jester View Post
    I pulled up at the petrol station and tried to get the petrol cap off. And tried. And tried. And started cursing and (possibly) kicked the damn tyre.
    Mrs. IA has the same problem with her car. It is a Mitsubitshi Outlander Sport. The gas cap is very hard to get off. Sometimes I have to use two hands on it. So she keeps a wrench in the car to give her extra leverage when opening the gas cap. We will definitely test removing the gas cap on future cars we buy.
    "I don't have to be petty. The Universe does that for me."

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    • #32
      Quoth judecat View Post
      In my world, the men weren't going to do any more work once they were off from their jobs, because work was hard. But your grandmother and mine are not who I'm talking about -- I'm talking about the women now. And no woman who did not live with a household staff of servants should be all that helpless.
      It wasn't until my Mom and Dad that the women stopped fixing their husbands' plates at family get togethers. In fact, at one such gathering on my Dad's side, one of my female cousins asked Mom why she wasn't serving Dad. Mom said, "I don't see any broken arms or legs. He can get it just fine himself." Men simply weren't expected to do much of anything once they got home. They might fix something around the house.. if they felt like it.

      I once had a high school teacher that had never pumped gas in her life. You see, there was one remnant of a full-service station in town and that was where she took her car until it went belly up and closed. Before that, she hadn't even driven her car to a gas station. Her husband would get up early and take the car to get gas. When he couldn't, her son did. I think she might have known how to do the finances, but I wouldn't have counted on it.
      If I make no sense, I apologize. I'm constantly interrupted by an actual toddler.

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      • #33
        I suspect all/most of us here have had similar experiences growing up for our generation(s); as regards household skills.

        My parents made sure we both (1 male kid, 1 female) had the basic skills for every aspect of looking after self and family: planning, purchasing and cooking nutritious food; purchasing, cleaning and mending clothing and planning a sensible wardrobe; keeping a house clean and hygienic; enough carpentry to do simple house repairs (including fixing holes in plasterboard); enough plumbing to replace a tap washer or peer into the toilet cistern and figure out why it's leaking; enough electrical skill to replace a fuse; enough mechanical skill to do simple car repairs.

        We were also taught what's dangerous to try to do by yourself: no roofing repairs without a safety line and a second person. NO 240V electrical repairs ever (though my brother later became a sparky). No blackwater plumbing repairs (ie, post-toilet-bowl).

        We were encouraged to develop any such skills further; to the limits of our parents' ability and if we'd ever exceeded that (we didn't in childhood), I know they'd have found a way to help us continue.

        I think my purpose in posting this is to ask if everyone - or at least most - folks here find that our generations don't have such a strict division of roles.
        Seshat's self-help guide:
        1. Would you rather be right, or get the result you want?
        2. If you're consistently getting results you don't want, change what you do.
        3. Deal with the situation you have now, however it occurred.
        4. Accept the consequences of your decisions.

        "All I want is a pretty girl, a decent meal, and the right to shoot lightning at fools." - Anders, Dragon Age.

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        • #34
          One of the grocery stores I go to offers a reward system for using a store card when I shop, which gives me 5 cents off of the price of gas at a particular chain of gas stations, for every $25 I spend.

          The problem for me is that I have to go into the store itself to redeem those points, but having recently had knee surgery and still using a walker to ambulate, it's very difficult for me to walk all the way to the store to redeem the points and then back out to my car.

          I saw a sign on one of these gas stations, near the pump that if a disabled person honks twice, and they have a placard displayed, that the attendants will come out to assist with whatever is needed. I've never used that, because I don't like calling attention to myself like that, and I also don't like feeling that I'm in the way or inconveniencing anybody else.

          So, I just don't use my points right now - at least, not until I can walk unassisted again.

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