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I have a sister.  This particular sister is getting ready to have a baby.  So she's doing all the "getting ready for the baby" things.  Like painting the nursery, buying brand new stuff from IKEA, and having parties.  So recently she had a baby shower, and I was invited.  Which is weird, because you never invite a guy to a baby shower.  Not only was I invited, but a whole clot of other guys were, too.  Mainly they were the husbands of the wives who were invited.  So basically, you have an entire flock of guys sitting around while the women are oohing and awing over the cute and adorably baby items.  The situation was kind of similar to when you get a bunch of your married friends together to "talk".  You end up with all the women in one corner talking about women things, and all the guys in another corner talking about  truly important things like football and power tools.

My sister lives in Sunny Tucson, while I live in Sunny Sierra Vista; a good 75 miles away.  On top of the distance, I was leaving at a relatively late hour.  So on my way home I decided to stop off someplace to get a little food snack to help me stay awake during the drive.  The place was a combination Jack-in-the-Box and gas station that is so popular to do these days.  I wanted a Jack in the Box milk shake, but was told that their milk shake machine was broke.  Disappointed, I went over to the gas station part.  I picked out an ice cream cookie sandwich and took it to the counter.  I proceeded to hand the guy my Chevron card.  The conversation then proceeded this way:

Clerk: Is this credit or debit?

Me: Well, it's a Chevron card.  So credit.

Clerk: (after running card through).  I'm sorry, sir, it's not going through.  Can I try it as debit?

Me: (I'm thinking at this point this guy doesn't understand).  It's a Chevron card.  It's not debit.

Clerk: Well, usually it won't go through as credit if it doesn't have the Visa or MasterCard sticker on it.

Me: (now I'm really thinking this guy has lost it, and I'm losing my patience) It's a Chevron Card.

At this point, I couldn't think how I could make it any more clear.  Gas cards are not Visa, MasterCard, or anything.  They are gas cards.  This one was for Chevron.  Why did I have to explain it any further to the guy?  And that's when it hit me.

This gas station is not a Chevron!

I looked out the window to see that in fact, this was one of those generic gas stations that don't take Chevron, which is most of them.  I'm not sure why, but I could swear I had seen a Chevron sign, but there was none around.  It was like some bizarre Twilight Zone movie.  It was there when I walked in, but now… 

I felt like a total heel.  Suddenly, I was the one who had lost it!  To top things off, there was a guy behind me watching this whole thing, and I didn't have some kind of witty comeback for it like "OH!  Sorry!  Wrong planet!" or even something generic like "I guess the mind really is the first to go, ha ha!"

I'm guessing this will get filed away under "memories that will come back to haunt you" and will next surface when I least expect it.  Probably when I'm at a family reunion and one of my family members decides it would be a funny story to tell to all 655 of my closest relatives.