Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The REAL pain at the pump


Yes, America, gas is never ever going to be back to 1.89 a gallon or some other ideal price of memory. Okay. I can accept that. When someone says "I can remember when gas was 39 cents a gallon," I'm in there like a shot with a "Yes, but you were earning 11 dollars a week, Grandpa - er- Dad!"
People will pay what the market dictates. Got it!
HOWEVER, there is a genuine anguish at America's fuel stations that, were I the President-to-be, I would put at the top of our country's priorities, beyond new fuel sources, economic sluggishness, Nuclear Iran, street gangs with weaponized ebola or ANYTHING.
It is the painful, ridiculously slow rate at which gasoline flows into one's tank at approximately the last 80 cents of a pre-paid amount.
You have pre-paid for 30 dollars worth of fuel at the neighborhood PetrolHut. Things are rolling along, then CLUNK!, at 29.15, things grind to a seeming near-halt as the tail-end of your purchase flows tankward.
Yesterday, I spent a FULL THIRTY-FIVE MINUTES waiting for sixty cents worth of fuel. Maybe it was seconds...BUT WHATEVER! Something must be done!
I imagined a statistic just this morning that said a full-third of the average American's life is spent waiting for this slowed gas!
I won't be a patsy anymore!

1 comment:

Rob said...

That's a federally-mandated "cooling off period," so you can slow down and reconsider whether you really need to waste that extra 60 cents' worth of fuel doing something pointless.

Want to make it stop? Hang up the pump when it slows. Let the next guy deal with the wait, BEFORE he can pump his own gas. 60 cents gone, yes, but such is the price of revolution! Patsy to vigilante in seconds!