The Real World

It was a hot and busy Friday afternoon of the Memorial Day weekend. I was in from San Diego and had completed some work in Newport, Rhode Island and was driving to visit relatives in Stony Point, NY. After a 3 ½ hour drive and now about to go across to the Tappan Zee Bridge, I hit stopped traffic – brutal even for a southern Californian.

The last few miles before the bridge are beautiful rolling green hills with trees in full bloom but no one was noticing the scenery in the stopped traffic, road construction, and the push to get the long weekend started. For me, I was just about out of gas and no clear place to get off the 287 nor how to get back on. I hoped I could make it across the bridge to Nyack.

The traffic actually started to move a bit as I approached the bridge. I was going to make it. I made it up over the highest part and on the downhill glide, the dreaded happened. I ran out of gas on the Tappan Zee Bridge at about 5:30 PM on a Friday afternoon of a holiday weekend. @&*!

I thought this is going to be bad. I was going to have the wrath of the entire traffic jam on me. I put on my flashers, glided along in my rental car until I came to a stop about 400 yards short of the end of the bridge. I pulled tight against the right side guard rail but I was thinking I might fare better by jumping into the Hudson than dealing with irate New Yorkers.

I called AAA immediately and found they didn’t come onto the bridge – now what? As I sat in the car while the traffic eased around me, I was amazed that there were no horns blaring nor yelled expletives at my predicament and within a few minutes a highway patrol officer rolled up.

Based on all the recent negative news stories about cops, I thought he’d draw his gun, shoot me in the car and then just push the whole mess into the river with the huge push bars on the front of his cruiser. No trouble any longer.

Instead he walked up to the window and asked what was wrong. I told him I was an idiot and just ran out of gas and that I called AAA. He could not have been nicer. He confirmed that AAA would not come out to the bridge and I told him I would call a relative. He told me they couldn’t come on to the bridge either. Then he said he would call the highway service guys. I asked how that worked and he just said they would bring out some gas. When I asked how much all this was going to cost, he said he didn’t know and walked back to his patrol car to make the call.

Again, its 5:30 on Friday afternoon. I thought, ok, if they do come, it will be at least two hours before anyone makes it out here so I just sat back and tried to relax for the wait. I sat there thinking there were no horns or screaming. People were politely making it around my nuisance. Then the cop, he really was very nice – maybe he was more used to idiots running out of gas on the bridge than I realized - came back up to my car to tell me that they should be on their way. As he was explaining this, a big truck with flashing lights was pulling up behind the patrol car. I said this looks like them. He said, “Yup and have a nice weekend”, got in his car and took off.

Then two burly men in the truck jumped out. Ok, here it comes, at least a verbal beating is all I’ll get since they couldn’t very well do much more to me in front of all the traffic. However, they just said, “Out of gas?” “Yea, sorry” I pleaded. They took control, grabbed the gas can and a funnel from the back of their truck. When I tried to grab the funnel to show that I wasn’t completely incompetent, they just said they would do it so I didn’t get any gas on me. 

They put a couple of gallons in the tank, said the first gas station was exit 11 and have a nice weekend. I said, “Wait, that’s it, how much?” They said again that’s it, have a nice weekend. I asked if they could stop at exit 11 and I could at least give them a tip or buy them a 6-pack for their weekend but they said, “No, you’re good to go.”

I got back in the car, started her up and fell back in line with the traffic. I drove the rest of the way to my relative’s house not quite believing what just happened. A San Diegan runs out of gas on the Tappan Zee Bridge at the height of rush hour on a Friday of a three day weekend. Anyone would think that is one of the worst possible things to happen in NY but instead the whole thing took about 20 minutes and everyone was pleasant, polite, and friendly. Then I realized this is what our country is really all about. I really appreciate the officer, the two highway workers, and all the drivers on the bridge that day for reminding me.