It was one of those summer days when it just couldn't get any hotter. My sister, Shannon, and I were on our way to Michigan to visit our grandparents. The majority of the trip was boring. Countless adult film stores in Missouri and seemingly endless cornfields in Indiana and Illinois were the only scenery present. To pass the time, we listened to music and made dull conversation. Shannon would give me some advice on how to get into college, and I would comment on the laughable precautions that some car manufacturers take these days.

Apart from Indianapolis and a few other interesting places that were few and far between, the trip was excruciatingly bleak. The route that we had chosen the week prior would take us near Chicago, but not through it. After suffering through the first 600 miles of the trip, we decided that we deserved a treat.

The outskirts of the city were as expected during rush hour; the gridlock was so tight we just turned the car off at times to conserve gas. When we finally entered the city, we were running below an eighth of a tank. We were in the densely populated business district, and we knew there wouldn't be a gas station there. As we drove on, we entered a residential neighborhood. There was sure to be a gas station there, right? The area was a little run-down and the groups of people on stoops and street corners couldn't have been more conspicuous. We weren't worried yet. Our mom grew up in south Detroit, and we had driven through that hell before. This was a walk in the park.

The BP station we saw next was a Godsend. The tank was practically on E, and we were starting to get nervous. There were no other cars around and the building was empty, which was a little suspicious. A few men stood against the building smoking and occasionally glanced in our direction. We both sat in the car for a minute, deciding who would get out and fill the tank. I drew the short straw. I was just crossing the hood of the car when a bear walked out of the convenience store. The man must have been 6'6" 280 pounds. Maybe that's an exaggeration, but a few pounds didn't matter to me at that moment. He began singing "Hasta Luego" as he approached our vehicle. I guarantee you have never seen a skinny white kid move so fast. Shannon had the car moving before I had my right leg in the door.

Being from northern Michigan, we knew that driving around up here with Oklahoma plates would attract unwanted attention, so we sped out of there and headed for the highway, literally. After driving two or three miles more, we arrived at a real gas station. At this point, the needle on the gas meter was well past E. I spent the next 10 minutes blessing Toyota for being so modest about the size of their fuel tanks.