Drive off. Not

The world over, police get calls from petrol stations complaining - rightly so, when someone fills up with fuel then drives off without paying. Not surprisingly the police refer to it as a "drive-off." 

I accept that on the odd occasion, there will be innocent mistakes with no criminal intent and generally these people return sheepishly and pay their dues before the police even catch up with them. But I'd never heard of the opposite happening until my dad retired from work.

Living two houses from a petrol station had its advantages. Convenient for everything it sold, whether driving there for fuel, or walking for anything else. It also happened to be on the way to the park, so was always good for sweets when I was a young boy.

Late one afternoon, mum came home from work to find dad sitting in his favourite armchair, reading the paper and enjoying life. "Where's the car?" she asked, since it wasn't parked in the driveway as per normal.  "It's in the driveway" was his reply. "No it's not" countered mum. The noise as the penny dropped was deafening. It turned out that dad had stopped at the petrol station on his way home, filled up with fuel, paid for the fuel and a paper, then walked home reading the headlines leaving the car on the forecourt. 

The car had sat there blocking one of the pumps for quite some time and no-one even given it a second glance.