The summer of 1975 I'd just graduated from college in Southern California and received a 1968 Ford Capri for a graduation present. I had my first job, in Los Angeles. One Sunday night, thinking myself a very independent gown-up, I left my uncle's place in South Laguna after a visit, without admitting to him that I had less than an eighth of a tank of gas and no cash to buy more on the way to L.A. I pulled onto the Pacific Coast Highway and watched the needle move down as I headed north. When the engine started giving off strong smells, I pulled into a gas station. There was no self-serve then; there were no credit cards, no ATMs. I begged the guy at the station. I could write him a check for gas, I said, or I could sleep in my car and try to walk to a town with a bank the next morning. As he was informing me that I could sleep in my car but he'd have me arrested, a station wagon pulled up to the next pump. The driver--a thin, plain, middle-aged guy--overheard the tail end of my failed request. As the attendant went to serve him, he nodded at me. "Fill her tank first," he said. "Really?" I said. Hope bloomed. "Oh, thank you. Thank you. But please. I just need two bucks' worth. I just need to get home." "Fill it," he repeated to the attendant. Then he turned to me, "You'll do the same one day, for someone else." The author had hoped that the gas station attendant would allow him to pay   _  .
in cash by check by credit nothing