Weaving my tapestry

I was sitting here trying to think up a clever title for this entry. After about ten minutes, I figured my time would be better spent just writing. The title may come later, or it might not.

I'm not going to try to recap the entire last month and a half since my last deer-in-the-headlights entry. Far too many things have happened to even start describing them, so I will stick with the more interesting ones.

I've done a few dumb things here and there. And then there was Friday. Started out smoothly enough - got up, drove 2 hours to church, got invited to a member's home for a nice lunch. Heading out of town, I pulled my Toyota diesel pick-up into the gas station and stopped at the pump. [side note - if the green background doesn't give it away, that is not an actual photo of my truck] Well, speaking of green, in the United States, diesel fuel pumps/nozzels are colored green to distinguish them from regular fuel.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

The station attendant put the green nozzel in my truck, and asked repeatedly, "Special? Special?" Since the nozzle was green, I assumed that in the UAE, Special means Diesel so I nodded and went inside the mini mart to snag a Red Bull for the road. Coming out, the attendant asked several more times, "Special? Special?" I started to wonder if that was the only English word he knew.

After leaving my special attendant in the dust, I headed toward the land of Desolation, but something didn't seem right, so I pulled over and called a couple people to ask the simple question: Green = Special = Diesel, right? They agreed. Apparently my English isn't very good either.

150 kilometers later (http://www.onlineconversion.com/length_common.htm), the truck started to lose power, then died altogether, and I knew I had just pulled off the most colossal blunder of my very young career. Talking to the owner of the rental company (we lease our vehicles) and googling "fill diesel tank with regular fuel" confirmed my fears: the worst thing you can do is drive it - even just a little driving can destroy the engine!!! (that would have been good to know 150k earlier) The rest of the evening I was tormented by visions of "you just threw your career path in reverse" to "hit the road, Jack!" Oh, the agony!

I believe in miracles.

What should have been $6-8 thousand for a new engine turned out to be $400 in cleaning costs with no serious damage. How the truck drove that far on the wrong kind of fuel is a mystery; how it didn't sustain irreparable damage is divine intervention.


Epilogue...
Now every time we send a vehicle in for service, it comes back with a sticker next to the fuel door: "DIESEL" in red letters, or PETROL in green letters. Hopefully that will help our special friends at the gas station. It might help the station attendant too.

EpiEpilogue...
If you've made it this far, you can agree that this story isn't nearly as fun as - "Mama, 'nother poo's hiding." Still, I do my best to pick out the unique experiences that weave splashes of color into the large, beige tapestry that is my life in the desert.