“Alright, I’ll see you tomorrow!” said Christie Wilkins as she left her friends in the high school parking lot. She drove her small, hand-me-down, gremlin-like car toward the exit to the parking lot, stopping at the stop sign at the intersection. She looked down at her instrument panel and sighed, “crap… Almost out of gas AGAIN! Why can’t I have a hybrid or something that gets more than 8 miles to the freaking gallon?” she asked herself.

She took a left turn out of the parking lot and made her way to the nearest gas station. She pulled up to the pump and stepped out of her car, looking around as she did so and taking in the scenery which she had seen far too many times. “I really need a change in pace…” she said, walking into the gas station to pre pay for her gas. She never filled up her gas without paying first anymore. The first time she did, she put exactly the amount of gas she had wanted into her tank, but the second… The second time, she had forgotten about it while talking to her friend on the phone. She had put ten dollars to much into the tank… Ten dollars which was her money for dinner and the basketball game that she was going to.

Now, Christie wasn’t the best looking girl in school, and definitely not the best looking senior. She was about four feet nine inches in height and weighed about a hundred pounds. She had nice, round cheeks, but a relatively slender head, making her look somewhat like a chipmunk. Her face was covered in freckles which stood out when she blushed or when she was in the sun for too long. Her auburn hair was normally always kept in a single French braid which reached half way down her shoulder blades, but when it was let out, it was very wavy and very shiny. She wore glasses with small, rectangular frames, which, most of the time, she kept perched on the bridge of her nose. But when she wanted to, she could put on many faces by just moving the glasses to the very tip of her nose. She could be pouting, offended, suggestive (something which she reserved for only her boyfriend), and many more things with this one, simple gesture.

On to the point, she was particularly put off by having to spend her game money on gas because her boyfriend was the captain of the basketball team, a fact which she was more than proud to admit, and the reason she was doubly sorry that she had to miss the game, and resolved never to put gas into her tank without paying first ever again.

Christie walked through the door to the gas station and up to the counter, her wallet in hand. “I’d like to pre-pay twenty dollars, please.” She said politely. “Fine,” said the cashier, a bitter-looking woman behind the counter. “Do you want a receipt?” the woman asked callously. “No thank you,” said Christie, turning from the counter and walking to the bulletin board which hung by the door. This was a regular occurrence for Christie when she pumped gas. She would always look at the bulletin board before leaving the building to see if someone had a car for sale, or if someone was looking to hire. She scanned the board quickly, and quickly found something of interest. It was a poster with large lettering on the very top which said “Wanted: Someone for Babysitting,” and phone number tabs at the bottom. She started to read the fine print on the poster when, all of a sudden, from behind her, came a loud voice the voice of the woman.

“Hey, are you going to go pump your gas, or are you just going to stand there looking like a delinquent?” she asked with a sneer.

“I’ll go pump my gas now.” Said Christie, her heart beating hard from the fright the woman had given her. Christie quickly turned around and grabbed one of the phone number tabs and jammed it into her pocket, and went to put the gas in her tank.