"I Need $40 on 5....and thanks for the thought."

Willie at the gas station is Iranian, about 65 years old, and a practicing Christian, oddly enough.

He knows my ma and I pretty well. Whenever I go in to get gas, we chat up. Whenever I go for an oil change, we chat up. They're fair at that service station--they fix your car and don't screw you over, they throw in freebies, and they're just good people.

So I just went in for gas, as I was running on 1/4 of a tank, which makes me insanely OCD nervous, though I could get to De Kalb and still have gas to spare. Plus, I just got paid, so time to fill up the tank in the Rolling Death Trap, as my ex-husband liked to call my car.

Willie and I chatted up about my mom's recent vacation, as the last time I went in for gas, I was reveling in the fact that I'd have the house to myself for a few days. Willie's ALWAYS telling me to say hi to her, gives me little trinkets to give to her...I swear he's got a thing for her. ANYWAYS...

I handed Willie my credit card and told him I needed $40 on pump #5 and thought I could get away unscathed.

Willie said to me, "Say hi to your husband." I said, "I don't have a husband, Willie, I'm divorced."

"Aww. How long have you been divorced?" he asked me.

"Four years," I said, not wanting to explain that we've been separated for four but divorced for two. (Details, details.) "I live with my mom. Luke lives with me half the time and with his Daddy half the time," I explained.

"Is he a good Daddy?"

"Yes, Luke has a very good Daddy," I emphasized. "He's a good man."

Willie is weirdly intuitive and highly wise, typically. He's never met my ex-husband, Craig, and doesn't know that Craig has flatly told me in the past that there's no hope for a complete reconciliation between us, which makes me sad, but is reality. We still love each other; we're just not meant to be married to one another.

"You never know, your husband might come back to you. You just never know."

"I don't think so, Willie, but thanks for the thought,"I said.

"You never know! A good woman like you, you should have a good husband," Willie said.

"I had a good husband," I told him. "But I blew it." Why I shared this detail with Willie, I don't know. It was just the truth.

He winked at me as I signed my credit card receipt. "Have a good weekend, Willie," I said to him as I tried to make an exit out of the gas station to fill up my car.

"Never lose hope, sweetheart, and say hi to your mama."

Done.