Filling up gas tank is like taking the ACT

Here's a sure sign that you're getting older: You remember how things used to be.

I had this thought (again) the other afternoon when I went to the new gas station by my house to fill up.

But BEFORE I was allowed to fill up, I had to respond electronically to a battery of requests at the pump such as the following:

1. Do you have a rewards card Y/N?

2. Scan card or enter phone #

3. Select method of payment

4. Receipt yes? Or no?

5. Enter PIN for debit, cancel for credit

6. Please enter zip code

7. Do you want to save .05 per gallon?

8. If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you choose to be?

9. Why exactly would you choose to be that kind of tree?

10. Can you believe Barbara Walters actually asked Katharine Hepburn this question?

11. Walters, of course, maintains it was just a follow-up question, but whatever.

12. Speaking of which, do you ever watch "The View"?

13. Really? You watch "The View"?

14. DUDE! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?

OK.

By the time I answered ALL the questions, I was all stooped and gray and toothless and also covered with cobwebs. WHO KNEW IT WOULD TAKE THE REST OF MY LIFE JUST TO FILL UP MY TANK?

I told my neighbor, Kathy, about the experience this morning on our walk.

"Seriously," I said, "I felt like I was going through the protocol for a missile launch instead of just gassing up. Except that sending a man to the moon would have been much less complicated."

Kathy laughed and said she'd had a similar experience at the same station.

Her daughter went inside for a fountain drink and by the time that daughter returned with a soda in hand, Kathy was still at the pump, answering questions like a kid taking the ACT.