Yesterday I got the “Ding!�. It happens about once a week. The annoying noise my car makes when it’s nearly out of gas. Driving along, searching for a good song on the radio, deep in thought, and suddenly I am jolted from my stream of random thoughts by a ding from my dashboard. This announcement, indicative of a near-empty gas tank, typically happens when I am late getting to an appointment for work, or eager to get home to see my family. It’s annoying. Can I just say how irritating it is when inanimate objects make demands on your extremely limited time via “the ding� or “the beep�?

“Please take the ticket.� Oh? Is that what I do when I park in a garage? Take the ticket? Thank goodness you told me! I was thinking of putting the car in park right here in the ramp entrance, setting my car keys on top of you, Mr. Machine, and walking away! That instruction may be helpful for someone who, say, hasn’t left the house in fifteen years, or perhaps a visiting aborigine (assuming they had learned to drive a car during their stay), but really, how often does that really happen? Why do we all have to listen to it? Who doesn’t know what to do when they enter a parking garage and a machine spits a ticket at them?

Or how about when its 2 degrees outside with a wind chill of 15 below, and you are at the pump trying to maneuver your back to the wind to keep your face from freezing while pumping some Godforsaken gas in your car? And the pump starts making all these aggressive beeping sounds? “Beep!� Would you like a car wash? “Beep!� Flip the lever stupid! “Beep!� You put the card in the wrong way. Moron. “Beep!� How about some beef jerky? It’s on special! “Beep!� Are you sure you don’t want a car wash? “Beep!� Are you really, positively sure you don’t want a car wash? Because you can have one! For only $4.99! And I want to raise my middle finger and say “Beep you Mr. machine! It’s cold out here, you heartless bastard! Stop asking me insipid questions! I just want to get some gas and go home! I just want to go HHOOMMEE! �. I am not a violent person, but by about this time, I want to punch the machine in the digital display with my frozen, throbbing exposed knuckles.

And I jump through hoops and try to press all the appropriate buttons as the flesh on my fingers begins to freeze to the metal gas pump handle, and my ears begin to develop frostbite. I finally get the gas pumping, return to the protection of my car and heave a sigh of relief while the gas tank slowly fills.

Then it starts again. “Beep!� your tank is full! “Beep� do you want a receipt? “Beep!� Last chance for beef jerky! And I begin to kick the gas pump with my frozen toes.

One might ask, what kind of person allows an inanimate object to draw such deeply rooted ire? And then writes about it on the internet? Me, that’s who. I am not sure what that says about me. It can’t be good. But there it is none the less.

Is detailing for you my hatred for gas pumps the point of this exercise? No, believe it or not. That was just the warm-up. I have yet to have a point.

Yesterday, as I battled the cold and lamented the drill sergeant-esque beeping demands of the gas pump, I looked around me and observed the people filling up their cars at the station.

There was a man in a funky leather jacket gassing up his blue Subaru, and another man scraping the ice of the back window of his Hyundai. Protected from the wind inside my car, I tried to discreetly size each person up based on their physical appearance. Then, I tried to determine how their choice of car fit in to the overall image.

The guy with the cool leather jacket was wearing slouchy, worn Levi’s and was pretty cute. Perhaps he was a musician. At least I wanted to think so. His car, though, was a bright blue Subaru. The color just didn’t quite jibe. It was a bit girly, really. I thought to myself, “maybe it was his mother’s, and he is a struggling musician, and the only reason he drives it is because it was free?� Satisfied with my imagined justification for his choice of car, I looked the other direction. There, I observed the man driving the Hyundai. He was young and also cute. He donned a big parka, and had a 5 O’clock shadow. He looked like a poet, or a writer. But he was driving a Hyundai. Perhaps he was another starving artist. The Hyundai was a little disappointing though. A more fitting car would be an ’82 Cutlass Sierra or something. Something different and un-pedestrian. Again, the car didn’t match the image. “Maybe he won it in a contest� I thought. Yes. That’s it. Satisfied with my conclusion, I glanced at the gas pump to see if my tank was full yet.

And then it hit me. I was observing these people around me, sizing them up by their cars and judging their choices from the safety of my MINIVAN. Yes. My MINIVAN. I DRIVE A FREAKING MINIVAN. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I mean, I practically had to be dragged kicking and screaming to get to the point of minivan owner. In fact, the entire story about how exactly I went to South Carolina for a funeral, flooded the bathroom, and came home with a minivan can be read here. But my point, if I have one, and your opinion regarding that matter is clearly subjective, is that while out there gleefully throwing stones for my own entertainment, I live in a big old glass house. A glass house in the form of a silver Town & Country minivan.

I would hate for anyone to look no farther than my minivan to size me up, regardless of the fact that my license plate reads “M-L-F� (no lie. And it’s not a vanity plate, but an infinitely amusing coincidence).

I never thought of myself as a minivan type person. I gaze longingly at Mini Coopers and red convertible Cadillacs from the 70’s. THOSE are the kind of cars I would choose for myself. I would hate to be sized up by my car alone. Just like I would hate to have anyone judge me or my abilities based on any one single facet of my life. Motherhood for example. Or Mommyblogging. Or running marathons, or my political affiliation, or the fact that I have an irrational hatred for beeping gas pumps.

But there I was, committing the crime myself against unsuspecting people at the gas pump. Glass minivan indeed. I am guilty as charged.