In true Grizzwold fashion

My dearest Ellen took my oldest daughter to one of her away tournaments this past weekend (June 23-24, 2007). The middle daughter came along for the ride. As is typical for the Grizzwold family, mayhem ensued.
During the prosecution of the tournament, the middle daughter decided to go back to the Grizzwold Family SUV for some much needed escaping from the heat. At some time during the hour or so period in which the middle child was in the car, some facets of the electrical system were used. When my dearest Ellen made it back to the vehicle to start it up, she was met with a whole bunch of NOTHING! It seemed that the battery had been stressed to the beyond its ability to start the vehicle. Several parents stepped up to help by removing some corrosion on the battery terminals with Coca-Cola and checking over the fuse boxes to see if perhaps a burned fuse was the problem. At the point where people were searching around for jumper cables, a man in a big pickup truck pulled into the empty parking space next to the Family SUV. Interrogatories ensued (something like “hey, is your battery dead?”) and it so happened that the pickup truck driver had a battery charger! Less than an hour later, the Grizzwold’s were up and running again.
The story does not end there. At the point where Mrs. Grizzwold entered the sports complex, she had more than enough gas to get back to the hotel where they were staying. It was a short ride, maybe 5 miles or so. As soon as she got the vehicle up and running, she decided to take it for a ride to charge the battery up and to refuel. Shockingly, the once ample fuel supply had been rendered to mere droplets! The computer display showed ZERO miles left in the tank, the needle on the dash was on “E”, and the “Low Fuel” light was on and blinking. Not knowing what else to do, she pressed on. She knew there was a gas station across the railroad tracks on the main highway leading to the sports complex. It was no more than a mile, she estimated. Surely she had enough to go a mile. Not this time. In true Grizzwold fashion, the truck ran out of gas on top of the railroad tracks! My dear Ellen was panicked as she expected that a train would be soon upon her, smashing the Family SUV to shrapnel. Being that she was in Southern Virginia at the time, another pickup truck pulled up behind her. Interrogatories ensued (something like “hey, is your truck out of gas?”) and it so happened that the pickup truck had several gallon sized gas containers on board. Fortunately, one of them had gas inside. The pickup truck driver was nice enough to give my dearest Ellen enough gas to get off the railroad tracks and proceed to the gas station.It’s puzzling how it was that the gas disappeared like that. The middle child had the keys to the vehicle, but claims only to have turned on the key to run the radio and turn on the lights (which explained away the battery situation). More than likely, there was less gas in the tank than there was and the computer did not accurately display the number of miles left in the tank: Garbage in, garbage out. In true Grizzwold fashion, she ended up no worse than from where she started.