wicking gasoline with a string (illus.)

Mom is driving too fast on a snow and ice-covered street. The wheels keep getting stuck in ruts that pull us too close to houses and cars parked along the sides. I keep trying to suggest that she slow down, but I’m afraid she’ll get mad at me for criticizing her driving (in real life, she would have lived close to 100...but because of her stubbornness about giving up driving, she got in an accident and then died at age 87). We finally skid to a stop at a dead end. There’s a gas pump right there, and we do need gas, so I get out and start operating a very strange pump. The gas comes out via a string that wicks it into the gas tank. The dream changes, though. I don’t notice the transition; but now we’re out in a field and I’m “wicking” the gas from the distant pump into the tailpipe. Nothing seems amiss…