A word to the doom scrollers who don’t bother with small talk: never underestimate the value of random conversation.

Apart from the entertainment factor, you never know what you’ll learn.

I’d no sooner driven into the busy petrol station than realised I’d parked yet again on the wrong side of the pump.

Now I’d either have to reverse out and queue for the pump beside me, or haul the heavy tube over the roof of my car and force it into the petrol tank.

Frustrated, I slammed the steering wheel with the heel of my hand and swore aloud.

As I got out to haul on the tube, I saw a man at the next pump filling his big, gleaming SUV.

The man was laughing at me, but in the kindest possible way.

“I know why you’re laughing,” I grumbled.

“Why am I laughing?” he asked, grinning.

Ah God, I was always doing this, I told him.

Even when I thought I was parking so the petrol tank was next to the pump, I always ended up at the wrong side.

“There is a little petrol pump icon on your dashboard,” the man told me kindly. “Beside this is a little arrow that tells you what side to park at the pump.”

I looked at him, dumbfounded.

“Ah, that’s only something you’d get in big, new, expensive SUVs like yours,” I groused.

“No,” the man said. He was in his fifties with one of those knowledgeable but kind sort of faces.

“It’s in most cars now. I........

© Evening Echo