Stories from the Crowd: Morons at the Pump — Don’t Let It Be You!

by Judy Card

The story depicted here is based on a true situation that evolved on a typical summer Sunday at Georgetown Airport. A few facts have been altered to protect the guilty; the innocent have no such need and can stand on their own to tell their story.

OK, that jumps the disclaimer hurdle. Let’s move on to the introductions. Since we’re the story tellers, we get to call ourselves whatever we want, and more importantly, we get to call the other guys whatever we want, too. Y’all saw the term “Morons” in the title? (Pardon that digression.)

We’re the 2fers; we’re 2 fer the road – uh – skies, 2 pilots, 2 best friends, 2 kindred spirits – you get the picture. They’re the Morons, but they obviously don’t know it, so for our purposes here we’re gonna call ‘em Mooney and Bonanza. Now, we’re pretty sure it’s bad story telling form to put the moral of the piece first, but just in case you’re not interested in the particulars of the 2fers vs. Mooney and Bonanza, here are some applicable moral statements you might want to review: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you (from your Sunday School class,) You reap what you sow (from your grandma’s storehouse of moral guidance,) Money can’t buy you love (from the Beatles,) or in the case of morons it can’t buy you horse sense either (from the 2fers,) A careless pilot might not live long and prosper (from Mr. Spock,) and finally, A pilot who ignores good manners and airport protocol risks accumulating bad Karma and being publicly lampooned! ( from the 2fers “Don’t let it be you” file.)

If you’re mentally and spiritually secure in the above teachings and don’t have any interest in this little walk-on in the long running human comedy, then go ahead, power up and take off. Blue skies! If on the other hand, you’re like most of the rest of us and need a little reminder from time to time of how to act and why it’s important, then read on.

Now, we 2fers like to live and let live; we do our own thing and respect your right to do yours. We do what we can to help out here and there, but we sure don’t pretend to be perfect, and we’re not the be-all and the end-all of airport etiquette. The thing is, somehow stars aligned and cosmic events moved us along the space/time continuum such that we were thrust into those few yards surrounding the gas pumps at Georgetown Airport with – you guessed it – Mooney and Bonanza. Right there, when our existence and theirs intersected, we began an 18 minute object lesson in the importance of all the aforementioned morals of the story. We’re passing that lesson on to you here, so you can learn from this example and avoid being a mo— a Mooney or a Bonanza – so to speak.

It was late Sunday morning, temp already 95 degrees. We were due to meet some friends for lunch at the diner on the Brenham airfield, so we filed an IFR flight plan but didn’t much think we’d need it. As we taxied away from our hangar, we headed in the direction of the gas pumps to top up before flight. At this moment we’re still a couple of happy-go-lucky ignorant fools as yet unchastened by the Universe. We’re just looking forward to a pleasant little flight followed by some genial RV camaraderie over a high fat, high calorie lunch. But – not so fast suckers, the ethereal guardians of proper airport conduct and protocol are about to drive home an important point.

Pulling out onto the main road we can see the gas pumps, and that sight should have sounded the first little warning bells that we were soon to enter a MORON ZONE. What did we see, you ask, that should have served as our proverbial “canary in the coal mine?” We saw a Mooney at the left pump and a Bonanza V tail at the right. So what? Perhaps the reader is aware of the admonition, “Always point your chicken into the wind.” Indeed neither mo— chicken was facing the wind. To be fair, the winds were light, and we were still blissfully unaware of the 18 minutes that awaited us at those pumps. We taxied on down, put our own tail feathers in the wind, and positioned our bird so we could go left or right depending on which mo— plane left first.

Now Bonanza had completed his fueling and gotten back in his cockpit before we arrived at the pumps. Mooney was just putting the hose back; oh good, fueling complete. Nobody’s moving yet, and we’re still pretty much sitting there dumb and happy, although, as several minutes tick by, the interior of our little plane is rapidly taking on the qualities of a super heated steam bath. Bonanza still has his cockpit door open, and – what’s this? Mooney leaves his airplane smack in front of the pump and saunters into the terminal building. Is he kidding? We know our RV is small, but is it possible that someone who can pass the physical required to maintain a pilot’s license CAN’T SEE A WHOLE AIRPLANE parked directly behind him obviously waiting to get gas???

Let’s take just a few lines here while we’re waiting on Mooney to get back to comment on the Beatles’ moral, “Money can’t buy you love.” This is a generally accepted universal truth that’s simple, clear, and obvious to most of us; the mo—- people who have the most trouble understanding it are the ones who think they’re at the top of their little pecking order. Both Mooney and Bonanza have expensive, complex, high performance airplanes, no question about it. And just as owners of high priced cars often tend to display bad road manners, these guys are letting us know how contemptuous they are of our little RV by rendering us invisible. We’re out here burning gas, running up our engine temp, sweltering in the midday heat, and wondering why we didn’t just get the gas in Brenham. Out here in gas pump limbo we’re starting to lose our equanimity. This “let them eat cake” attitude didn’t work in the French Revolution and it’s not working here either. You see, here’s the thing, despite our discomfort, impatience, and yes, flare of anger, we 2fers know that, unlike Mooney and Bonanza, we enjoy a richness they’ll never know. We built our plane; we put our whole selves into it through long, tedious, joyous hours. It’s our art, and part of our lives are in it. We’re both the luthier and the guitarist; we made the instrument, and we get to play it, and that my friends, you cannot put a price on. So, while these guys are busy ignoring us, we’re really OK with our place in our own pecking order. Still – it’s getting hotter’n Hades out here! AHH, Mooney returns from the terminal.

By now we’ve had a while to scrutinize the pump area. Bonanza still has his door open; he has removed the chock in front of his nose gear but left the one in back of it. When he leaves, this will become a piece of FOD (foreign object debris;) this is not only inconsiderate and bad form, it’s potentially dangerous. Let us refer you to Dr. Spock’s moral, “A careless pilot might not live long and prosper,” second only to the Golden Rule in this case. We call him on ground control frequency and ask for his time frame on clearing the pump area. No response. The ground controller calls him; his radio must not be on. We continue to sit.

At about minute 15 of our wait, Bonanza closes his cabin door; the chock is still on the ramp, so we call him again and tell him. He starts up his plane and brings his avionics and radio back up. Georgetown ground controller calls him and tells him about the chock. Finally he replies to the controller stating that he’s aware of it, but it’s on the back side of his gear and he’s moving forward. (The cloud of MORON ether expands.) Since he still doesn’t get it, as he pulls off, we decide to give him one more call and thank him for leaving an obstruction at the pump. He hits his brakes and asks the tower if that call was for him. The controller just tells him to proceed. We admit that we took some call liberties here, especially with that last one, but we’re pretty friendly with the controllers and they were almost as exasperated as we were.

Mooney’s still parked. It’s a full 18 minutes since we started timing our wait at the gas pumps. With Bonanza gone, we remove the offending chock, pull forward and begin fueling. Mooney starts to leave taking with him what remains of the MORON ZONE and the residual bad Karma not already attached to Bonanza . A few minutes later we’re up among the clouds playing our instrument with wild abandon.

If what goes around comes around, (see the moral, “You reap what you sow”) then Mooney and Bonanza are somewhere waiting in line to fuel their planes, and we’re having the last laugh telling the story of morons at the gas pump. Don’t let it be you; clear up your own obstructions, and don’t PARK your airplane at the gas pump!

Excerpt From
Stories from the Crowd
Scott Ballew
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