Ran Out of Gas

I'm one of the last people on earth that you'd expect to run out of gas, but guess what? It just happened. Typically when the gas light comes on, I can think of little else but getting to a gas station and filling up. Cars are designed to have the light come on very early so I never worried that I'd be cutting it close. Well, about six months ago, the gas gauge went out on the van. I asked my favorite car shop how much it would cost to fix and was told that it typically costs around $500. Who wants to spend that much  money on the gas gauge? Not me. Thankfully, the gauge was always showing 1/4 tank less than it really had, which only meant that I'd be filling up sooner than normal. Then about a month ago, the gas gauge completely wigged out. It was all over the place. One day it would point to full and the next day my gas light was on. So I decided to start using the odometer. It had been working fine based on my calculations of getting 16 miles a gallon for a 20 gallon tank. That would normally allow me 320 miles. But the last time I filled up, I didn't have quite enough money in the budget to completely fill the tank but was pretty sure that I was close. I thought I could make it at least 300 miles. Well at 294 miles, I was out of gas. I had all the girls with me and it was a super hot day. Thankfully, however, we had just left to get gas and hadn't even made it more than a mile from our house. In the end, I learned two important lessons. Lesson #1 - always fill up the entire tank when depending on the odometer to know when to fill up next. Lesson #2 - my Odyssey only has an 18 gallon tank despite the owners manual saying it holds 20.