A Litre of Petrol by Life Member, Louis A Coutts

A LITRE OF PETROL

by Life Member Louis A Coutts

I found myself in an outer suburb of Melbourne and pulled into a petrol station to fill my tank. There was a car in the first bowser set and I pulled in behind it and started to fill up. The driver of that car returned from the payment counter and got into his car and drove away, leaving the space in front of me. Then a small old looking car drove in from the opposite direction facing my car and stopped at the bowser. My immediate thought was “how am I going to get out, with that car facing me?” A lady alighted from the car and as though she read my mind, waved to me and with a pleasant smile and said something to the effect of “Don’t worry”. She placed the nozzle in the tank, and I kept filling mine. A minute or two later, I saw the lady return to her car from the payment counter, get in and drive off. I was still filling my tank. It occurred to me that she must have only put one or at the most, two litres in her tank. from hand to mouth in this rich country Australia. I couldn’t imagine what it must be like to live on the financial edge. I was then reminded of the story of the woman in the supermarket with her child, who was buying stuff for the evening meal. At the check out counter, she had to stop the check out clerk because she didn’t have enough money for everything she had in her basket and had to hand some stuff back. The guy behind her then told her not to hand the stuff back as he would pick up the cheque for the balance. If I had been more attentive, I would have told the one litre lady to fill her tank and I would pick up the cheque. But she had gone. I then went into the shop to pay, only to discover that I had left my wallet at home and didn’t have any money. Sadly, that is not the first time it has happened to me and I am almost certain it won’t be the last. But I couldn’t get that lady out of my mind and wondered how many more people in this rich country simply don’t have enough for their day-today needs.

There is something wrong, not only in this country but throughout the world. I remember once in Washington State in Northwest USA, passing a caravan park. It was not a tourist park. It was a place of old broken down caravans where people lived. I saw a little girl, sitting forlornly on the step of one caravan looking vacantly at the surrounding dirt and gravel which were her horizon. The USA for heavens sake where Jeff Bezos can afford to build a space craft so that he can spend a few minutes a hundred kilometres above the earth. What a toy. I wondered how many toys this lonely child had in her caravan home.

I remember travelling across Siberia which is in a country run by a guy who has just built a billiondollar holiday home on the Black Sea. Village after village in Siberia consisted of broken down ancient small houses made of timber. The streets were unmade with huge gouge marks left after vehicles had travelled over them in the winter. Kids playing in those unmade streets which was their horizon. And then of course, there are the refugee camps of people trying to escape from terror. These camps are a redefinition of poverty and deprivation. There is plenty of money in the world to go round but it is in the pockets of the very few who use it to buy expensive toys and to make more money. In this rich country, Australia, there are children who go to bed hungry. If this is a product of our socalled economic model, there is something wrong with the model. I really don’t know the answer but then all the money in the world is in the hands of so few and there are so many in need. What seems to be missing is enough love to ensure the needy don’t go hungry and that decent women can fill their tank and buy enough at the supermarket to feed their family.