I smell gas...

why do so many of us like the smell of gasoline? i don’t know why YOU do (if you’re one of the many) but i know why EYE do. i will tell you:

when i was just a wee little twerp, i lived in oakfield, wi. i was there for four years. while living there, my dad worked a few miles away at the fond du lac airport as an airplane mechanic. skyport was its name back then. 

my mom was a stay at home mom. we kept her very busy. we would make playdough all the time and take out every single can in the kitchen and set up a grocery store and play countless hours of the ‘merping’ clerk. (‘merp’ is the sound we thought the snanners made when you scanned groceries.)  that’s only a fraction of all the fun we’d have at home. 

during lunch time tho, we’d often get in the car and go visit dad at work. we’d drive around to the hangar we all called the ‘shop’. that’s where most of the airplanes were fixed. as soon as we’d open the big metal door full of dents, there would be this amazing smell of avgas and oil. donny or dave would often greet us. these were dad’s co-workers. donny was a curly dark haired dude that had a mustache. dave was more clean cut. they all wore navy blue dickies and the typical mechanic shirts. they had the cool embroidered name tags. 

we’d usually find dad on one of those cart things that you lay on to get underneath cars and stuff. sometimes we’d play on them. he’d drop everything and come greet us. his fingers were always stained with grease. even if he washed them in that heavy duty orange soap with the grit in it. 

i always thought his hands were interesting. i’m not sure why. maybe because of the fact that they never came clean. he’s got these sorta stubby fat fingers, but he can play guitar very well. and he can fix just about anything. no, everything. i don’t think he’s ever failed at fixing anything. his hands smacked my butt countless times for being a brat. but his hands also were/are really good at making really detailed things on the etch a sketch. his hands also were my stress relievers. i’d get so tense and angry that i’d need to punch my sister, or push her or, well, just anything to get the tension out of my muscles. he’d put up his hands and i’d put up my fists against them and push with all the might i had in me. it worked. his fingers would tickle my feet in the morning to wake me up. every.morning. but after awhile it didn’t work anymore. i got used to it. anyway, back at the shop:

mom and he would sit at the always cluttered desk there in the shop, while us girls would play ‘balance beam’ on the troff/grate/drain thing on the floor that oil and other engine excrement run off into. every.single.time we were told to be careful cuz our shoes could easily get stuck and we’d face plant into the grate and end up with lined bruises all up and down our face. i never fell tho.

we’d take a break pretending we were in the olympics on the balance beam and go bug mom and dad for a bit. we’d take turns sitting in the creaky desk chairs with wheels and spin each other around until we couldn’t go any longer. then we’d push each other around the shop in them and were once again told to be careful of the drain. 

we would then take a short walk across another hangar that was attached to the shop and enter into the office. the back room housed the vending machine that was never short of nutty bars. we’d always get one. this would be the time that us girls would stuff our faces, dad would do the same, and mom would use the bathroom before we headed out. 

mom: “alright ladybugs...” that was our cue. we’d all walk back to the shop hangar. sometimes donny would be welding something off in the corner by the door. “don’t look at the sparks,” dad would say. cuz they could make us go blind. so i was told. i snuck a peek now and again just to look at what i was told not to look at. but i wouldn’t look too long. naturally, i didn’t want to go blind. ...now that i think about it, i'm the only one of the tegeler girls with crappy vision. perhaps it's related to my peeking. 

then we’d each give dad a hug. he’d squeeze us and say, “love you baby, be’good girl nomey.” (he still says that to me) that’s when you could really smell the avgas and oil. it’s always a comforting feeling when i smell that smell. my mind shoots straight to dad whenever i smell it. 

and today (which is actually a week ago...i didn’t finish writing this all in one setting...oops) while i was filling up the snowblower with gas and 2 stroke oil, i had the beautiful smell graze my nose. i accidently spilled some on the blower which transfered to my mittens. the grownup in me (which actually DOES come make a rare appearance every once in a while) got a little fussy and thought, ‘oh crap. now my mittens are going to smell like gasoline. i’ll have to throw them thru the wash.’ but then as i inhaled a bit more, the real me (which is somewhere stuck between an 8 year old crossed with a 24 year old’s common sense) thought, ‘awwwsome. my mitties are gonna smell like gas!’ 

and happy thoughts crossed my mind. 

and those happy thoughts are just what you got done reading about.