Mourning Heilman's Sunoco

Relationships are very important to me. I work hard to do my part in sustaining relationships with people I care about. Or with corporations. For many years I've taken my car to be serviced at Heilman's Sunoco in Hatboro PA. Like fine surgeons, they have saved my Nissan from certain death when various of its vital organs - known as automobile parts - have given out - and its vital juices leaked like blood to the ground.

My Nissan runs well and it runs fast. Just like me!

When I get my oil changed at the Sunoco I get a special Club Card for their gasoline which is a good 20 or 30 cents per gallon cheaper than their regular price and in fact is competitive with many gas prices in the Philadelphia area.

Due to a conflict at my last oil change, I was not given the Club Card and they refused to change their minds despite my passionate and tremendously logical reasoning skills.

I'm in a quandry about my feelings toward them. I had absolutely LOVED these people. They were "customer service" personified. But they did an about-face. It was as if they had had brain transplants and forgot who they were. It's as if You called Me, asking for my advice, and I hung up on you, such was the betrayal I felt.

I wake up in the middle of the nite with a slight headache. What is this about, I ask my headache. Why are you bugging me? I wanna go back to sleep.

Oh, I say. You wanna obsess over Heilman's Sunoco, do you? All right, I said, switching on the light. Go right ahead.

The thoughts go round and round. You know how it is. Obsessing, however, produces no forward movement, no human growth. I refuse to be a victim of my own obsessions. Okay, I say, we'll lie here a few minutes, we'll obsess a bit, and then we'll open our book and fall asleep again.

My obsessions were very intense. They lasted about four or five minutes. I just lay there and remembered my experiences. I was grieving. For the men they used to be. And the men they were now.

I realized I had fallen out of love with Heilman's Sunoco Station.

It is too soon to think of replacing them. Leave me alone to mourn my loss and then I will move on.