Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Tyler's Take - Translator Please!

So who else is pumped (no pun intended!) about the low price of gas right now (sad that we think anything under $3 is low, right?!)? I know I am! We moved from Ohio, which was consistently above the national average for some weird reason to Indiana where I think they average just below so that makes it even better for us. We also happen to live in a town that a major interstate runs through which means we literally have 5 competing gas stations within about a quarter mile radius to choose from. So yesterday, we were going to take advantage of the $2.83/gallon gas after work so we stopped at the Circle K which is the most convenient station to stop at on the way home. I pull in, get out, swipe my card in the pump and the message on the screen says “Scroll Table 1F”. You’re probably just as confused reading that as I was. Scroll Table 1F? Are you serious?! What the heck is that supposed to mean? So I cancel the transaction and decide to try again. This time, I figure I would try to “play along” with the mean trick that I figured the Harvard-graduate attendant inside was playing on me. So again I swipe my card and again it says “Scroll Table 1F”. But I remained calm and tried to think back to all the times I have pumped gas and what the sequential messages on the screen were. I figured it had to be something like “Do you want a receipt?” or “Would you like a carwash?” so I pressed the “No” button thinking that was probably a safe pick regardless of what “Scroll Table 1F” was supposed to mean. Lo and behold…it worked! The message changed…I am a genius! So as I was about to give myself credit for cracking the code and being the next in line to take over Microsoft, I looked up to see what the message had changed to…"Scroll Table 2B"! Unbelievable! So, since my computer language decoding skills end at “Scroll Table 1F” and I wasn’t about to try to figure out what “Scroll Table 2B” meant, I cancelled the transaction, got back in the car, and drove the half a block to the next station.