It's Hurricane Season: Learn to Suck Gas like a Pro!

Sooner or later, especially if you use a portable electric generator fueled by gasoline, you will have to suck gas during hurricane season. Done properly, you can get away without tasting gasoline and look pretty cool to your neighbors doing it, earning their respect and creating a legend around you that will follow you to your grave-- which should be a long way down the road provided you followed the rules of:

Sucking 101

First, to keep sucking to a minimum make sure you have a few FILLED approved five-gallon gasoline storage containers (a.k.a "gas tanks" or "gas cans"). If you're really lucky, you won't have to suck gas from your car's gas tank at all if hurricanes miss you but, if you're not so lucky, those extra filled gas containers will keep your sucking to a minimum after you lose power-- and possibly the power to run the electric pumps at your friendly neighborhood gas station. The extra filled gas containers will get you by for a short time-- even shorter if you have a big generator and/or use the one you have a lot. Sooner or later, expect to suck. It's not a pretty picture, but it can be done safely without any "after taste." For those who expect to go through gasoline like it still cost $2.50 cents a gallon, invest in a "gas caddy." If you shop around, you can buy a 14-gallon polyethylene fuel caddy for less than $130.00. They come on wheels and include a lever action gas pump handle.

Secondly

while shopping for your fuel storage containers, pick up some 3/8" to 1/2" clear plastic tubing. Get the kind that is impervious to chemicals. Your local home warehouse superstore will have it in the plumbing aisle. Ask the associate there to cut you 6'. Make sure he or she gives you a receipt so that you can present it at checkout with your purchase (otherwise, expect a lot of nasty looks and possible violence upon your person considering the people in line behind you are already at their wits end due to living without the comforts electricity brings to all of us).

Now for the sucking part-- something that should only be done as a last resort, i.e., you're out of gas and you can't get gas anywhere.

Remove the lid of an empty gas container and sit the container on the ground next to where you pump gasoline into your car's fuel tank. Take that 6' plastic tube you bought, remove your car's gas cap, and slip the tube down into your car's gas tank. Blow on it and listen for "bubbles" on the other end. If you hear the bubbles, it means that end of your tube has not popped out of the gasoline.

Loop the tube to the ground, grab the empty fuel can, and put the end of the tube into your mouth. Make sure you are STANDING or at least hunched over because your mouth must be higher than the fuel level in your car's gas tank. Suck hard (but don't inhale). If done properly, you will see the gasoline flow out of your car and STOP AUTOMATICALLY at the height of the fuel level in your car's gas tank. Cool! Now, bring the empty gasoline tank up close to your mouth and put the end of the tube that was in your mouth into the empty gas container. Lower the tube and the empty gas container to the ground and watch how it fills up by itself . (Please note, the empty gasoline container MUST be LOWER than your gas tank which it should be if you have placed it on the ground). To stop the flow of fuel, lift the gasoline tank up so that it is higher than the fuel level in your car's gas tank. Pinch the plastic tube, remove it from the gas can in your hand and screw the top back onto the gas can. Repeat until you have completed filling your portable gas containers. When finished, raise the plastic tube from the ground so that the gasoline inside flows back into your car's gas tank.

That's it. It's pretty simple.

But what about next time? Won't I taste gasoline on the tube? Probably. Either clean the end you will be putting into your mouth with alcohol or wrap a Ziplock bag or some clean cloth around the end. You won't taste a thing.

If at the end of hurricane season you still have some extra gasoline stored in those containers, pour it into your car's fuel tank. Although by adding stabilizers, you can theoretically store gasoline forever, it's a dangerous thing to do and there is really no need to keep your portable gasoline storage containers filled with gasoline any longer than you need to. However, when storing gasoline, remember, no matter how long you keep it, ALWAYS LEAVE ROOM AT THE TOP OF YOUR GASOLINE STORAGE CONTAINER FOR THE GAS INSIDE TO EXPAND. Do not fill it to the top.

Good luck and good sucking!

D.C. Copeland is a writer and award-winning artist. When visiting Copeland's personal website and blog http://www.miamivisionblogarama.blogspot.com/, you will discover that Wayne Cochran is the Patron Saint and that many people consider it to be "The Rodney Dangerfield of Blogs."