The Diesel Gospel (And the Stranger Who Saved Dan’s Truck)

It was 1:30 in the morning. We had just landed in Orlando after an epic vacation that had wrung me out like a wet dish towel, dragged our luggage across what felt like three time zones (when it was only around 30 feet outside of baggage claim), and then — because the universe has a sense of humor — discovered that the truck wouldn’t start.

Thanks, Universe :::pointed side eye:::

Not a slow, polite failure. A full-on, grumbling to dead-silent, you’re-not-going-anywhere refusal.

Airport security jump-started us. Bless them. We were back in motion, marginally less cursed, and all I needed was gas and a bed, in that order, and I would survive the night.

So we pulled into the gas station and I climbed out of the truck on autopilot — jaw set, eyes glazed, running entirely on spite and residual adrenaline. I was not a person at that moment. I was a task list in a human costume. Get gas. Go home. Collapse. Repeat never.

Somewhere from the front of the gas station, a voice called out something.

I heard: “Pasbeezel.”

I did not look up.

The voice called out again. Still: “Pahzbleezel.” Or possibly “Blahzeekle.” The exact phonetics remain disputed.

I kept my head down and reached for the pump. I was going to pump this gas, I was going to drive home, and nobody’s word salad was going to stop me.

It was only when I noticed that the pump offered me exactly zero options — no regular, no premium, no super-premium, not even a “good enough for tonight” option — that something finally cracked through the fog.

Oh.

Oh no.

I looked up at the nozzle in my hand. I looked at the sign above the pump. I looked over at the stranger still standing at the front of the gas station, watching me with the patient expression of someone who had been trying to save an idiot from himself for the last ninety seconds.

DIESEL.

He had been yelling “That’s diesel!” at me this entire time. Clear as a bell, apparently, to everyone except a man who had been running for 19 hours straight and filled with pure stubbornness.

I had nearly pumped diesel into Dan’s truck. Dan’s truck. The one that belongs to the man I share a home with. The man who was sitting right there in the passenger seat, presumably one bad decision away from a catastrophic engine repair bill and a very long conversation about my listening skills.

I set the nozzle down. I looked up sheepishly. I cupped my hands around my mouth.

“THANK YOU!”

He gave a small nod, the way people do when they’ve witnessed something they’ll tell at dinner parties for years. “So there was this one time I tried helping a gay guy with crazy airport hair to not destroy his truck by putting diesel where it doesn’t belong. He ignored my shouted warnings and almost ruined his truck; but he caught himself and cancelled the transaction just in time. It is possible he misunderstood me with all the Fergie G-L-A-M-O-R-O-U-S blaring out of the truck.” And then they would all politely laugh while sipping their wine.

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Here’s what that moment gave me, once the adrenaline settled and I was safely pumping the correct fuel at the correct pump:

There are always people trying to tell us something important. And there are always moments when we are so deep in our own fog — exhausted, agitated, just trying to get through it — that the clearest signal in the room sounds like noise.

The stranger at the gas station wasn’t being difficult. He wasn’t interrupting. He was trying to hand me exactly what I needed, and I couldn’t hear him because I’d already decided I knew what I was doing.

How many times has that been true when the stakes were higher than a truck engine?

The Wayfinder lesson this week is a humble one: when you’re the most convinced you don’t need the input, that’s usually when you need it the most. The people who have your best interest at heart don’t always time it conveniently. They don’t wait until you’re calm and caffeinated and emotionally available.

Sometimes they just stand at the front of a gas station at 1:30 in the morning and yell “That’s diesel!” at you until something finally lands.

Listen earlier than I did.

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Wayfinder runs every Wednesday at randyscobey.com. If someone in your life has ever saved you from your own worst impulses, maybe send this their way.