Last night I saw two teenagers pushing a car up a street. It wasn’t late (6:00pm) but I was on my way to another client appointment.
I stopped my car and asked, “Need some help?”
One girl said, “Well – do you have a gas container?” Ahh – they have run out of gas.
“No – but there is a gas station not ½ a block in the opposite direction. Do you need a ride?”
The same girl said, “Yeah, we know about that gas station.” She sounded deflated.
The other young lady was more upbeat and said, “She asked if we needed a ride to the gas station.”
The first girl said to her friend, “Oh – that would be good.”
The other young lady said, “Maybe I should stay with the car to make sure no one hits it, and you go to the gas station.”
So – now one girl is standing somewhat in the middle of an intersection protecting the car, while the other one is looking for her phone and bag so that she can go to the gas station with a stranger. In the meantime, I’m wondering why the car is pointing away from the gas station instead of toward the gas station. They knew where the gas station was, but the car was traveling in the opposite direction.
The moment the first girl hopped into the car, I get hit with cigarette fumes and I open my window.
I said, “I’m sure that the folks at the gas station will fix you up. You just need enough gas to drive the car back to the station for a better refill. I’m sure they have a gas container for you.”
The girl said, “Yeah, but the last time this happened, they wanted me to pay for the gas container!” She paused, “Oh – maybe my other friend has a gas container. I’ll call her.” And she starts texting her friend.
I’m thinking … ‘Well, if you are going to continue to ignore the fuel indicator…maybe investing in a gas container isn’t such a bad thing.’ Then I realized that was ‘old adult thinking’. This is a ‘young adult’. Young adult thinking is much different. We are all familiar with this type of thinking. We’re all been through this stage of development. At this stage, we’re not developed enough to think beyond the immediate.
- She probably borrowed the car from her family and tried to get the car back home without putting any gas in the car (that’s why the car was facing away from the gas station).
- They probably deliberately passed the gas station hoping they could drive up their driveway on fumes (that’s why she sounded dejected when she admitted to knowing where the gas station was).
- She has money for her own personal use (i.e. cigarettes) but not to refill the gas in someone else’s car that she is borrowing.
- Why should she buy gas for the next person (versus the thought that she is merely paying for the gas that she has already used).
- Its fine for her friend to help push the car and then stand in traffic to protect the car; a stranger to drive her to the gas station; and another friend to meet her at the gas station with a free gas container – just as long as it’s not costing her anything.
It’s common. It’s just that age. We’ve been there. And to expect young people to think otherwise (on their own) is going to be frustrating for you. They are not wrong…. they just ‘are’. So — even though we explicitly state our expectations when they borrow the car, have the house to themselves, go to unchaperoned events, etc; don’t be surprised if it doesn’t ‘stick’ all the time.
We get to the gas station and I said, “Well – I’m glad it was just gas. That’s easy to fix. And there’s even an auto parts store right there if you need more help. I think you’re all set.”
She said, “Yeah, it’s good that it was only the gas. Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem. Good luck.”
A free ride to the gas station. But what she doesn’t realize is that it is costing someone something. It may not be costing her friends anything. It’s another adventure to them and they ‘young think’. It’s totally logical to them. But think of the parent on their way to work the next day – with a car that has only fumes in the gas tank. And- in retrospect – the ‘free ride with a stranger to the gas station’ probably wasn’t such a good idea either.
Youth.