wtf

I drove to work this morning with my car running mostly on fumes. I think my “miles you can drive before you have to call your wife to come bring gas because you’re stranded like an ass on the side of the highway” were around nine when I stopped to put two gallons of gas into my tank… plenty to get me home to the gas station where I could get a huge discount (and pay only $1.29 per gallon).

After work, I hopped back in my car, expecting my “miles left” estimate to be somewhere around fifty but, to my surprise, it was at nine.

Nine?

Didn’t I add two gallons this morning… about a mile from the office? I started to doubt that the morning’s brief fuel pump stop had actually occurred, but then realized that yes… yes, it had. The fuel gauge needle looked suspiciously higher than it would if the “nine” was justified.

So I started to drive to the gas station near my home (about thirty miles away), secure (somewhat) in the knowledge that I had put enough gas in the car to get me home. To my amusement, the mileage estimator counted down dutifully from nine… to zero… while I was driving. Sadly, it didn’t go negative.

So here’s a chronological series of photographic evidence, proving beyond doubt that my car, having sat in the cold, office parking lot for eight hours, had somehow found the time to partake in some form of computer-system-altering chemicals of a dubious nature.

First, the early warning sign when I started the car.

My car, through its obviously distorted view of reality, estimates that I can go zero miles before running out of gas. Note the odometer reads 75585.

When I got to the gas station… five miles later… the estimate still read zero. It was actually at zero for longer than five miles, but I didn’t want to take a picture of my dashboard while driving sevent… umm… within the legal speed limit down the highway.

After the fill-up, the estimate seemed to be more in line with reality. Hooray!

Let’s not speak of the lamb.