Around Town by J.B. McKinley Personal observations of Life in Rural Vermont

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S Gas Cans

           I suppose everyone has what I’ve always called a gas can around the place. Even the most shipshape garage neatnik must have to have one stored around someplace. Unless you are a condo owner with no outdoors to care for, you’ve got to have some kind of a jug filled with gasoline. It’s still a necessity of the machine age to keep a gallon or so of liquid dynamite sitting in the corner of your garage. As for lethality, that’s another issue that I’m glad our paternalistic state hasn’t gotten around to really admit is dangerous to our health.
      Then, there is my house. It’s a place where we go get gas with about the same regularity we get bread and milk. Seems that something always demands a priming, cleaning, or filling. There’re weedwackers, chainsaws, rototillers, lawnmowers for nice lawns and rocky lawns – you name it. Half the time our cars and truck smell like gasoline and it’s not just because the vehicle’s tank is leaking. It’s the darn 1, 2, and 5 or 6 gallon gas cans. They spill and leak.
     Of course, the problem is that they aren’t cans anymore. Even the name is a carryover from when you actually had a steel gas can. Technically, I suppose we are now filling plastic liquid fuel containers. I suppose, given the price of stuff, we will soon be buying it in designer bottles like Parisian perfume.
     But, that’s off the subject. The subject is leaking. For example, do you have elbows with terribly dry skin? Well, it’s probably from gas running down your arm and dripping off your elbow!
     Seriously, have you tried to keep every drop of gas in your gas can? The yellow plastic spouts are no good. The air vents aren’t adequate. The can gets a little dent and crease – what’s it do? It cracks and leaks – on you.  And, don’t forget, don’t leave it in the sun, the color fades and eventually (I guess) the sun destroys the thing. I know they get so you can scratch through the plastic with your fingernail.
     Don’t forget the gasket. First you find it seems to be the kind of rubber that gasoline eats, even the good ones seem to pop out and disappear. Then you find the molded spout is so poorly made the gasket can’t seal it. Next, any pressure on the spout that bends it a bit causes gas to drizzle on the exhaust of your machine. In short, for one reason or another it leaks on you, your clothes and your new leather shoes.
     Don’t forget those handy flexible plastic sides. They are designed to push in when you are lifting the can up to fill a vehicle – that way you get the front of your coat, shirt or trouser leg soaked as gas blurps out all over you. It’s sort of rural eau de gas. Carrying the scent everywhere is when you know you’ve arrived.
     What’s the point of this diatribe? Not much, I guess. But we need a new name for a gas can, we are profaning the past by still using it. And it may be time for someone to market a less ephemeral container for gas. We need a gas tank without a butterfly’s lifetime, but a parrot’s – 100 years or so.