Britney Spears was reportedly too sick with "high anxiety" to attend a court-ordered deposition Wednesday morning in her custody battle with Kevin Federline, but hours later she was feeling in the pink enough to gas up her Mercedes, chat up the paparazzi and get up and leave her companion.

TMZ.com captured the responsibility-rejecting mother of Sean Preston, 2, and Jayden James, 1, pulling into a Los Angeles-area gas station around 2 a.m. (the fuel is apparently fresher then) Thursday morning with an unidentified female riding shotgun.

Brit, her newly dyed brown extensions in a tangle atop her head and her red eyeglasses still sporting the manufacturer's tag on the lens, told her concerned shutterbug pals she's "feeling better" before advising them, "Stop taking pictures of me. I'm ugly right now."

She was also a mite forgetful.

In a move she thankfully never made while cruising with her tykes, Spears zoomed out of the gas station without her passenger, who suffered the indignity of being reassured by the paps, "Don't worry, Britney's coming back," as she paced up and down the sidewalk.

Brit did eventually return.

In related news, one of the few remaining Spears insiders says there's no truth to a report that she's considering taking on the role of the Virgin Mary (go on, laugh, we did) in a "satirical retelling" of the nativity story.

The producer of a flick called "Sweet Baby Jesus" claims to Us Weekly that the Britster is looking over the script and would make a decision soon.

"Reading the script? It seems crazy," the Spears source tells FOXNews.com (no word on whether reading the script or reading in general is what's considered "crazy"). "A film career definitely isn't her focus right now."

And finally, Tyra Banks is loudly (as always) decrying a report alleging she callously suggested a bold and final career move for Spears.

"[Britney] should just go ahead and kill herself after the album and go out like Marilyn, very grand," the self-adoring talk show host was supposedly overheard saying, according to E! Online's Ted Casablanca. "She should have done it after the last album."

No way, bellows Banks, who declares (via Us Weekly), "Britney is a friend and we correspond with each other. These alleged statements are completely false."

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