Last Dollar
Excellent word of the week this week from Mona: gas. Excellent because it's back to school and back to work and everything's go go go! Anyway, here's my contribution.
The week gas went up to five dollars a gallon Toby set his car on fire.
He had been drinking over at the Tip Top in Elmore, and was driving home 2 am-ish, using country roads all the way to avoid the local police. He ran out of gas about three miles from town. He'd left his last dollar on the bar as a tip, so even if he could hitch a ride at this hour, he'd have no money to fill the damn thing up. No money til payday on Thursday.
He got out of the car and lit a cigarette, regarding the situation, and when he was done he just flipped the butt through the window into the back seat. Made sure the upholstry caught the flame, even blew on it a little, grabbed the pint of Wild Turkey from the glovebox, then backed away to watch the fireworks. One of those big explosions would improve his mood. Like on TV.
It never happened, of course. The car was out of gas.
It took Toby about a half hour to realize this. Once he did, he stood up, thinking about how different TV was from real life. He finished off the bottle of Turkey with one pull, lit up his next to last cigarette, and began the long walk home.