running on empty

i often look back on specific things my parents did while raising me and think, wow, that was pretty ingenious. i was reminded of this on thursday when i ran out of gas. during rush hour. with both kids. and the dog. and no cell phone. my parents, when they bequeathed to me my late grandmother's 1985 buick skylark on my sixteenth birthday, warned me of its one serious defect. (well, besides the glaring defects of being a navy blue senior citizen's car without a working FM radio.) somehow missed by the manufacturer, they informed me, was that the tank was actually empty when the gauge read quarter-full. the lesson was obvious. for the year that i drove that car before i headed off to college, i hightailed it into a gas station as soon as that needle started going southward of the halfway mark. i wasn't taking any chances. the good thing was that i never ran out of gas. the sad thing was that it took so long for me to realize how masterfully my parents pulled the wool over my eyes. i was almost 30 when it hit me that they hadn't been entirely truthful with the whole "aren't-you-so-glad-we-figured-this-out-before-you-got-stranded-somewhere?" routine. but if i've learned anything in the past four years of parenting, it's that you do what you gotta do -- even if it involves a little white lie every now and then. will i do the same thing in twelve years, when my children start driving? after being stuck on the side of the road last week, i've learned my lesson. i'd simply be a fuel fool not to.