Chapter 8

Buck pulled into the gas station and stopped at the pump. Wilma looked over. "Why are we stopping?"

"Need gas."

"Gas?"

"Fuel."

"Already?"

Buck nodded. "One thing you'll find out real soon: cars in the twentieth century are very inefficient compared to the twenty-fifth century. On our way to Florida, we'll probably have to stop half a dozen times."

She furrowed her brows. "How far is Florida?"

He shrugged. "Thousand miles? Give or take a couple hundred."

"In a transport that would only take an hour."

"I know. But…," he patted the steering wheel as he opened the door. "We're not in a transport. Come on; I'll show you how to pump gas."

Wilma exited the car and moved around to Buck's side. He inserted the nozzle into the gas tank and smiled at Wilma. "Come here. See this handle here? All you have to do is hold it down."

"Where are you going?"

He pointed to the little store. "I'm gonna get a couple snacks, a map, and pay for the gas."

"How will I know when the fueling process is ended?"
Buck grinned. "The pump will stop itself. I'll be right back. Oh, when it does stop running, you can replace the handle in this holder right here. That will shut off the pump. Don't worry, you'll do fine."

Buck went into the store, leaving Wilma holding the gas pump. She hesitantly squeezed the trigger. Gasoline instantly began to flow into the gas tank. One whiff of the fumes, however, caused her to turn her head away in disgust.

"Ugh," she mumbled. "Barbarians."

When the pump stopped, she hung up the handle and hurried back into the car. A minute later Buck came back with a plastic bag full of supplies. He set the bag in between the two seats and smiled as he began to pull things out.

"I got an atlas, Rand McNally, of course; donuts for breakfast, glazed or powdered sugar; potato chips, one bag regular and one bag of my favorite sour cream; some pretzel rods, and a couple orange sodas and a couple root beers."

Wilma glanced at him blankly. "I have no idea what you just said."

"I know! That's what makes it all the better!"

"You're having fun with this, aren't you?"
"You bet! I'm in my comfort zone and you're not! Now you have some kind of idea what I was going through when I first came into your world."

Wilma nodded once, looked away. "I had no idea." She glanced over at him again. "You know Buck? I really envy you."

"For what?"

"How you adjust to new situations and new surroundings. You were taken out of your world and placed into a completely new, alien one… and yet you not only survive, you thrive! You have adjusted so well into the twenty-fifth century that most people would never believe you weren't born there. Me… I'm in 1987 for one day and I'm totally clueless. If it weren't for you, I'd probably still be wandering around that stupid forest, hungry, cold, and lost."

He placed a hand on her arm. "You don't give yourself enough credit, Wilma. Sure you might still be in the woods, but you'd eventually find your way back out. You have excellent survival skills, I've seen them before. But since you have me with you: you can just sit back, relax, and leave the flying to me." He pulled out a sugar donut. "Here, have a donut."

"What is a donut?"

He shrugged. "Just basically sugar and flour. Try one… they're really good!"

Buck threw the car into gear and squealed the tires getting back onto the road. Wilma jerked her head around. "What was that?"

Buck smiled sheepishly. "That was me trying to get used to the clutch!"

Wilma stuck out her tongue to lick some of the powdered sugar. She looked at Buck out of the corner of her eye as she smiled. She then placed the entire mini-donut into her mouth.

"Hmmm, this is good!"

"I'll take one of those glazed donuts… no, the brown one. These are my favorites, with the exception of angel-cream filled. They didn't have any of those."

Wilma tried one of the glazed donuts as well. She liked the first one so well she took another one. "Slow down on those things," Buck chided. "You want to keep your girlish figure for those outfits we bought last night!"

"I'm beginning to understand your fascination for food," Wilma stated. "We don't have anything like what I've eaten these two days. Our food is… bland. Your food is spicy…, sweet…, good!"

"You want to try salty? Open up one of those bags of chips… the blue bag."

She opened the bag of regular chips and ate one of the smaller ones. Her eyes widened with enjoyment. "You might not get this bag back!"

Buck chuckled. "I think I've created a food monster. Wait until you try chocolate chip cookies!"

He slammed his foot down on the accelerator to pass a slower car on the two lane highway. Wilma instinctively grasped onto the car handle.

"Aren't you going a little too fast?"

Buck glanced down at the speedometer. "I'm only doing sixty-five."

"Sixty-five what?"

"Miles per hour. You're used to space ships doing thousands of miles per minute and stargates that nearly instantly transport you millions of miles and you can't handle a Ford Mustang doing sixty-five?"

"It just feels… too fast!"

Buck began to giggle.

"What?"

"You really do sound like my mother!"

She glared at him for only a moment before beginning to laugh. She turned away to watch the scenery. A few minutes later she turned again.

"Buck? What are these buildings here?"

"Huh? Oh, they're just houses… people's homes."

"Why are some houses small and others big?"

He shrugged. "It all depends on how much you can afford. If you have a good job that makes a lot of money, you get a big house. If you don't have a lot of money, you get a smaller house. Or if you live in the city, you can get an apartment. Even apartments come in different sizes and price ranges."

"So everything depends upon money?"

He nodded. "Pretty much."

"What determines who will live in the city and who will live outside the city?"

"Well, of course the biggest factor is where you're born. But pretty much people themselves decide where they will live. If I live in Chicago and decide to move to New York, then I get a few friends together and we load up the trucks and move. Or if I want to move to this little town here when I retire, I buy a little house with a view of the lake, buy a fishing boat and a case of beer and I'm set. We pretty much have the freedom to live and do what we want. At least in America, we do. I can't say that for the rest of the world. In a lot of countries, the government determines where you live, where you work, when you take vacation, if you get vacation time."

"That's… barbaric."

"It certainly is." He glanced at Wilma out of the corner of his eye. "But there are some advantages to my world."

"And what's that?"

"Potato chips!"

She began to giggle as she looked around.