A man is leaving a Chevron station in Kent, Washington with his gas cap on the trunk of his late model Japanese car. He's in a rush like the rest of us, having endured the gas attendant tell us, "it should be up in a couple of minutes" to "we're not sure when the pumps will be up again."
After taking note of the man's gas cap where it should not be, we tried to get his attention to no avail. It was hard to tell if he didn't see our waving from our minivan in the lane beside or if he just chose to ignore us. Nevertheless, when the signal turned green we were both off into the night, we to the left and he to the right.
But as we drove off, we could see the gas cap fly off the back of his car. We drove off talking that we should go back and rescue the cap in the hope that the man would return in search of his cap. So we u-turned and returned to where we parted ways.
As we turned down the street to park, who should walk by, but the man missing his gas cap. Apparently, he did not take note of our waving, but somehow did hear or see his black gas cap get yanked off into the night.
We parked and I started out to the intersection, but I did not get more than 20 feet when I heard the most awful plastic crushing sound. The man was cursing. He clearly was not happy. From what I saw it looked like he was just beaten to the cap by a very large SUV. I thought about talking to the man, but given his demeanor at the moment, I thought better of it and walked back to my family.
The intersection is now known to us as the "scene of the crime."
