My brother and I have a special kind of relationship. When we were kids we were constantly at each other’s throats, sometimes literally, but as we’ve gotten older we have gotten very close. When I moved away from home to Hagerstown, MD my brother and I didn’t get to see each other as often as we would have liked. When my brother had his daughter, I tried to see him at least once a month, but he lived in CT so that wasn’t always easy to do, especially with work. It had been a while since our last get together, and so we decided to go on a little bonding road trip together. Just the two of us. We had a lot to catch up on, so I was excited to get the chance to hang out with my brother.

We packed up the 2017 Mitsubishi Outlander full of snacks, water, emergency supplies and finally all of our clothes and toiletries and were on our way. My brother took the first stretch of the 8-hour drive and I was going to take the second half. The trip started out pretty solid. We have made an awesome playlist of both of our favorite songs to listen to on the trip and were joking and laughing as he drove. We were reminiscing about the road trips we would take when we were kids and some of the car games we used to play.

We were only 2 hours into the trip and my brother was going through water like he was a fish. We already had to stop so that he could go to the bathroom twice! At this rate, the drive was going to take us a full day of driving. We were approaching the last rest stop for about 30 miles and our tank was at the E, so we absolutely needed to get gas asap! I told my brother to stop at the rest stop so he could go to the bathroom one last time and fill up the gas tank. I went in to grab us something more substantial that skittles or potato chips to eat, and my brother said that he would take care of the gas.

When I got back to the car he was inside and ready to go, so off we went. I made sure to confiscate most of the water so that he wouldn’t have to go again so soon. We pick up the conversation where we last left off and were about 15 miles away from the rest stop when the car started to slow down on its own. My brother was pushing hard on the gas pedal, but nothing. He slowly guided us to the shoulder of the highway and when we came to a full stop he just looked at me and said “oops…I forgot to fill up the gas tank.”

Seriously, dude? You had 1 job… well 2, but one of those was a decidedly more personal situation. My brother was EXTREMELY lucky that I had 24/hour roadside assistance from Younger Mitsubishi! They were able to deliver fuel to us and we were able to carry on with our journey, but it could have been a real mess.

All in all, the trip was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to our next adventure. However, from this point on, I’m going to go ahead and be in charge of filling up the tank.  My brother can be in charge of snacks and hydration.