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Legend: Minister refueling his car from an unusual container attracts comment.
Example:
Origins: No one quite knows how old this story is, but its central theme appears in another auto tale:
[Collected on the Internet, 2000]
Once
This fellow owned a Mercedes Benz, and when he needed a container for holding water to put in the radiator in case of an emergency the best he could find was an empty champagne bottle. One night he noticed his engine getting fairly warm, so he pulled over to let it cool. Then he went to the trunk, fetched the champagne bottle, and started to pour water into the coolant reservoir. A couple people noticed him, and one said "These Mercedes owners really pamper their vehicles, don't they?" 
again, the sight of an auto's needed fluid being administered from an unusual receptacle is misconstrued
and commented on by a passerby, even though the "punch lines" of each tale are quite different. In the first example, a shining-eyed dowager assumes the vicar is working a miracle by transforming urine into gasoline. One can picture her driving off with her own faith reaffirmed by the sight of what she perceives to be another's, possibly even to write a large check to the vicarage. In the second, two jaded sorts gain the opportunity to make a telling comment about what are often seen as the ridiculous lengths luxury car owners will go to in caring for their cars. In this instance, a commonly-held point of view is aired, one that paints the automotively affluent as fools even as it affirms the basic common sense of those who lack the money to afford such machines, proving Aesop's "sour grapes" fable is still very much on the vine.
Yet there's something about clergymen, urine, and misfunctioning vehicles
My grandmother used to bomb round the Surrey lanes in her old Minerva. One particularly cold night she was all wrapped up, and quite a long way from her home at Weybridge, when her acetylene lamps ran out of water. Along came the local Rector on his Dursley-Pederson. Having ascertained the nature of the problem, "That's easy," he said, "we can use the water with which the Good Lord provided us." Making sure that the coast was clear, he stood on tiptoes on the running board, and peed into the container. "That's all I've got," he said. "You'd better do the other side." Granny removed her goggles. "I'm awfully sorry," she said, "the Good Lord forgot to furnish me with the proper provision."2
Barbara "under equipped" Mikkelson
Last updated: 16 November 2006 Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2008 by snopes.com. This material may not be reproduced without permission. snopes and the snopes.com logo are registered service marks of snopes.com.  Sources:
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