God's Third Asshole, Colorado

I stopped for gas.
For this job, I needed to collect gas receipts.
When paying in cash, one must often prepay.
However, the accounting department won't accept prepaid receipts.
A receipt listing the amount of gallons pumped is required.
So normally I prepay, pump the gas, then go back in for a receipt.
That way the accountants know I didn't prepay $100 and spend it all on Fritos.


I thought I would try to pump without prepaying.
Sometimes outside of big cities this works.
While I waited for authorization from the cashier, a spotty kid, about 17, approached me with faux pleading eyes.
"Please can you help us?"
He laid on some sob story about needing a couple of dollars to pay for gas so they could get home.
Their SUV was parked at the pump.
A couple of similarly spotty kids lounged in it.
"Sorry, man."
The kid did his best crestfallen sigh and sulked away.
C'mon, dum dum.
That story hasn't flown since Y2K.
You're trying to tell me that three teenagers in an SUV can't figure out how to use an ATM or credit card or Paypal or Facebucks.
Fuck you.


I looked for a button to communicate with the cashier but it didn't exist.
So I went inside to prepay.
The cashier wore a large difficult haircut.
She seemed preoccupied with cups, like she was trying to crack the code on the shell game.
"I'll need a receipt after I'm done pumping."
She seemed to acknowledge me.


I pumped $83.85 into the van, and went back in to get change and the receipt.
The cashier gave me change and printed the receipt.
It was for the previous transaction.
"Well, that's not right," she said.
Uh oh.
She gave me the pre-paid receipt for $100 and another receipt for 
-$16.15.
This would not do.
"I need to have the amount of gallons on the receipt."
The cashier got defensive.
She did this by raising her voice at me.
"Well, I can't!"
I've been in this situation before.
For mysterious reasons, some gas stations have the most difficult time printing receipts that include the amount of gallons pumped.
I asked her if she could make a handwritten receipt.
She raised her voice a little more.
"YEAH, BUT HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO KNOW HOW MANY GALLONS YOU PUMPED!?"
I told her that I would go out and find out.
"FINE!"
"FINE!"
Great.
Now, I'm yelling like a moron, too.


While retrieving this fucking information, a more sympathetic rube handed the spotty kid some undeserved charity.  The kid got in the SUV without getting gas and sped off.
Good luck with that drug habit.


I returned to the difficult woman with the difficult haircut and gave her the amount of gallons.  She wrote the information on the back of the previous transaction's receipt.
Ugh.
"Do you have the carbon copy kind of handwritten receipt?"
"No," she smirked.
"Wow.  You just love not being able to help me."
She yelled at me some more.  It was rerun of what she had already said earlier, so it suffered from second time blues.
I explained that I was working, and that the accountants needed to know that I didn't just spend $100 on Fritos.
I used the word Fritos again as a way of humor.
She didn't find that funny.
"It sounds like they don't trust you."
I waited for her tubby mitts to finish writing the simple numbers, collected all of the receipts, and stormed back to the van.


The name of the town was God's Third Asshole or some shit.
Actually, it's called Garden Of The Gods.
Well, it seems assholes are in season in God's Garden.
Piss on this scabby shithole town.