[Formerly Steve Wilkinson]

Kurt S didn't say to use a 9-10 quart pan, he said to use "a BIG pan."

For what it's worth, I have found the ideal containers for drainage oil are those big plastic bottles--they're huge--that hold the supersized quantities of washing-machine detergent. I collect all the ones my wife empties and usually end up with about 30 or 40 gallons of oil to occasionally take to the local garage drainage-oil tank.

Off topic, but it occurs to me every time I think of "drainage oil."

When I was a 16-year-old gas-station attendant in Wellfleet Mass, on Cape Cod, my second day on the job an old guy came by with a five-gallon can and asked for some "drainage oil." At least that's what I heard. So I went and filled his can, gave it to him, and he said, "How much?" I laughed and said it's free, you can have it. He left.

Came back an hour later, furious. What he had actually asked for was "range oil," which is what in parts of Massachusetts they call kerosene, since back then, in the 1950s, it was used in cookstoves. He'd poured the filthy old oil into his stove before discovering what I'd given him.

Served him right, since he thought he'd put one over on the new kid by taking without question five gallons of what he thought was kerosene, which he knew damn well wasn't free.