Dipstick in the Driveway

 File this under things that are different in Chile.  

It was that time of the month again.  No, not that time.  This is not that kind of blog.  

It was time to check the dipstick in the driveway.

What?  You don't have a dipstick in your driveway?

Hmmmm....Well then, let me explain.

This is a picture of my driveway.  Taken from my front door. Right underneath the driver's side mirror in said picture is this funny looking thing that sticks out of the brick. 

 It looks a lot like this  ↓ .  Probably because this is a picture of it.

         

This is my dipstick.  In my driveway.  I have never had one of these before.  Like I said - file this under things that are different in Chile.  But since it is nearing winter here in the Southern Hemisphere this dipstick is very important.  This dipstick tells me how much fuel I have left in the tank that is buried under my driveway.

What?  You don't have a tank buried under your driveway?

Hmmm...

Well, I do have a tank.  And if I wanted not to have to wear my jacket in the house like I did last month before we got the fuel loaded, I had better go outside and check the levels.  So, I unscrewed the top and started pulling.  Having never done this part before I didn't realize just how long this dipstick was.  MadHatter is crouching down next to it in the picture below.  I am guessing it to be about 4 feet long.  Now that is a dipstick.

That funky flesh color in the left upper corner is my arm.  Pretty distorted by my camera phone.

Once getting it out of the ground we needed to check how much kerosene was still in the tank. Because if we let it get too low or, Heaven Forbid, empty we run the risk of not having enough

hot water to last through a shower.  Or the stove wouldn't light. Or the heat wouldn't continue to seep up from the floorboards and quickly back out through the uninsulated concrete walls.  (Which, as much as I hate the second part, I need the heat to keep coming out of the floorboards. Otherwise I would be wearing a jacket in my own house.  Again).  

Our dipstick was showing very low levels of fuel... 

Trust me - it's low.

  

 This would not do.  So the call was made and yesterday the fuel truck showed up.  One that looked like the one below (though this is not our truck - it was too dark outside when they showed up at 7 pm to get a picture of that one).  But this gives you the idea.

  They proceeded to roll out a very long hose, hook it up to this spout

↓

Not very well hidden in my garden about 5 feet from the dipstick.

And proceeded to unload 530 Liters of kerosene.  That's about 140 gallons.  

And you thought you had a big tank to fill on your car.  

At a cost of 299.980.00 CLP* ($585.96 US as of today's conversion rate of 511.950 CLP to $1) it comes out to approximately $4.18 a gallon. Not cheap.  But still so much more cost effective than the house that we lived in last winter.  That one had a gas line directly to the house.  The gas company would come read the meter each month and bill us (sound familiar?).  That bill, in the throws of winter, would run about $1200 a month.  US dollars, not CLP.    

Have you gotten your wind back yet?  

Yeah, the first time I saw that bill it almost knocked the wind out of me too.  Heck, every time I saw that bill I think I felt my breath catch.  It's just not a number you can get used to seeing on your gas bill.  And now, thankfully, I won't have to.  Because I have a dipstick in my driveway.

* And if you are wondering why we didn't just get 300.000 CLP worth of fuel you would be completely normal.  We asked for 300.000 CLP but their truck only holds 530 Liters, hence they could only bring us 299.980,00 CLP.  They could have rounded up and lied to me.  I wouldn't have minded.  It would just have made it easier to balance the checkbook.