Friday, September 19, 2008

Brother can you spare a gallon....

Gasoline. Motor-go-go juice, the fluid that keeps America moving. Can somebody tell me where it has all gone? I KNOW we just had a hurricane move through Texas and we shut down oil production there for a few days...but COME ON. Wasn't that like a week or two ago (I lose track of time easily!). How about kicking those grasshoppers back into gear?

I dare you to try to find a gas station in the Nashville, Tennessee area with gas today. OH wait, there are a few. If you find them you will also find crazy lines like in the 70's when I was a kid and grandpa and grandma said "hey, lets go to the Phillips 76 fueling station and get some gas. Pack a picnic kids, we are gonna be there a while".

The panic must have begun early because by around 1pm I was hearing the buzz around the office start with "better fuel up this weekend...the government said there will be no gas for 5 days!" RIIiiiiiight. The entire country with no gas for 5 days. Listen to the environment sigh in relief and take a deep breath of fuel fume free air while everything "gas engine" stops for a work week. Um. I seriously doubt that. Yeah, in Nashvegas we have had runs on gas stations in the last week or so. Most stations are only selling cigarettes, cold beer, soda and chips right now, but a few are cashing in with the precious petrol! I'm actually proud of them. The 2 places I saw that actually had open pumps were only selling it for $3.99 a gallon and $3.91 a gallon. Still ridiculously high, but more reasonable than last week. Unfortunately, the lines for those pumps bordered on the Chicago Loop at rush hour. ... long and stopped. The local Wally World has pumps, and gas, for 3.91 per gallon....and lines that snaked up and down every Super parking lot path, literally, and into the lot and around the Blockbuster and and and.....seriously, even if they limited gas to 5 gallons per person, they still would run out before everybody was served. This is pathetic.

P a t h e t i c.

I'm half tempted to sit in on the panic buying as one vehicle has 1/4 tank and the other has about 1/2 tank of gas and we have church, work and school next week to think about...not to mention grocery shopping and hubby's birthday celebration. Oh, and we have the older boys this weekend, so another trip to the other side of town to drop them off.

So, fine, American Government, Oil barons in Texas and all the Oil Mongers we are overpaying in the Middle East, how about a few truckies with some gasoline in them head to Tennessee and soon before there is a real problem...not just panic buying, crazy lines and angry people reminiscent of the 70's- when people at least had mary-jane to mellow them out.

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