"My name's Albert. I'm 68. I deliver heating oil to homes in rural Pennsylvania. Drive the tanker truck, fill people's tanks, and collect payment. Been doing this route for twenty-three years, identical two hundred houses.
Winter up here isn't a joke. You run out of oil, and your house gets down to freezing in hours.
But I can tell when people are stretching it.
Like Mrs. Kowalski on Ridgeway Road. Typically orders oil every six weeks in winter. Last year, she went fourteen weeks. I'd drive past her house, see frost on the inside of her windows. She was keeping the heat off, living in one room with a space heater.
I knocked on her door. "Mrs. Kowalski, you need oil. It's 12 degrees out."
She wouldn't open the door all the way—too cold inside. "I'll order next month, Albert. When my check comes."
"You won't make it to next month."
"I'll manage."
I filled her tank anyway. Two hundred gallons. Didn't ask. Just did it.
Next day, she called the office crying. "I can't pay for that oil."
"Pay me when you ...