NO SERVICE WITH A SMILE

By Juan Montoya

Recently, during a scorching hot day, I was riding along with a friend in his wife's car.
As we headed south on McDavitt toward the expressway just past Roosevelt, we noticed that the car's temperature gauge was slowly climbing toward the red zone.
If you're familiar with the area, you know that the nearest gas station is the Citgo (formerly Mascorro's Grocery) at the corner of McDavitt and Lincoln. Now I believe it's called Monterrey Tortillas. I told my friend that I remembered they had a air and water vending machine there. Since we were headed in that direction, my friend made his way there warily eyeing the climbing gauge needle. We pulled into the gas station and saw the coin-operated machine at the far end of the parking lot near the alley abutting the station.
We raised the hood and peered inside. There were no visible water leaks and we pulled out our quarters to get some water. Unfortunately, we found the machine was out of order and we were left with the choice of driving the car heating up and damaging the motor, or calling someone for help.
I sauntered over into the store and told the clerk the machine did not work. He told me he knew. Looking over behind the counter, and toward the rear of the store, I noticed a kitchen with large sinks and a cooking area.
I asked him if we could get some water for our car that would allow us to go see a nearby mechanic along Lincoln. He said he wouldn't give anyone water who didn't make a purchase.
"I can sell you bottled drinking water for $1.59 a gallon," he said.
"Our car is hot," I replied. Can't you let us have some tap water as a courtesy to your customers?" I asked.
"You haven't bought anything, so you're not a customer," he replied.
"And we never will be," I said as I walked out of the store.
We decided to try to reach one of the small mechanic shops along the way to Guadalupe Church on Lincoln and we did.
The workers there let us have a bucket of water and when we poured it into the radiator, we noticed the tell-tale sign from the vapor that the top radiator hose had developed a leak. All it would take to fix the problem was a replacement hose and a screwdriver. We had the screwdriver, and a new hose could be had at the O'Reilly's Auto Parts store on 14th St.
We filled the radiator with water and carefully drove the eight or 10 blocks to the parts store.
After we bought the hose, we filled the radiator with water and the problem was fixed.
I don't know who the owners of the Citgo store are, or whether they know that their employee behaved in such a discourteous manner toward us, but it's service such as this that makes or breaks some small businesses already struggling in this bad economy. Or perhaps he was a relative of the owners. We don't know.
A gallon of tap water would have cost the clerk nothing, and would have gained the gratitude of future customers who would have gladly paid the extra nickel a gallon to purchase gas from them next time he was in the area.
Regardless, it was difficult for me and my friend to understand the clerk's unfriendly behavior. As they used to say about Ma Bell's attitude before it was split up by the government, "We don't care. We don't have to."
Now it's our turn to say, "We won't patronize your store. We don't have to."