Fuel Gage or Gauge

Let me introduce you to my local gas station. It is a "Mobil" branded station. It has one full set of self-service pumps - front and back side. It has one set which is half (one side) self-service and one side full service. It has a convenience store, which one could argue is no more convenient than, say, the local grocery stores 3 to 4 blocks away, or the local news stand across the street, or a rug bazaar in the back alleys of Marakesh. What it does have is the most predatory and outrageous attitude towards gasoline prices and it's local denizens.

I think we all know within a few cents, the price of 93 octane (or if you are too cheap maybe 89 octane, or being really cheap and, owning some Korean piece of crap, and don't really care maybe 83 octane fuel) gasoline. Given roughly $80/barrel oil, the price you and I should pay, less the goverment misuse tax, is approximately $3.00/gallon. At the New Canaan Mobil, you pay $3.55. Let me help you with the math: that is 55 cents per gallon of usury. On a car which holds a 15 gallon tank, you are paying the amount of an extra bottle of good Aussie Shiraz to this petrol plundered, which quite frankly would be better consumed in your tank than lining his shyster pockets.

Why does the pernicious proprietor of this filling station charge so much? I have heard all the carte Blanche excuses. It costs more to bring the gas to New Canaan. The real estate is more expensive, so the gas must cost more to offset the higher fixed costs. The fact that we live in Camelot means that the gas is actually made from spun gold to line the streets as one drives over them. Okay, that last one is not really a true reason, but neither is any of the other excuses I have heard given. Let's call it what it is: highway robbery.

So, as we have no navy to deal with this particular economic pirate, I propose we all boycott the Mobil station in New Canaan. Let the guy sell lottery tickets to the desperate and slurpies to the school dodging dropouts, but no gasoline to us. Buy your gas elsewhere. Let's show this guy and Mobil that lack of morals equals lack of dollars.