(Quick side story: The first time my parents met Tom was in 1978. We'd just driven from Santa Barbara to the Bay Area and we arrived late on a Friday afternoon. Because of the energy crisis, most gas stations were closed over the weekend and when they were open, the lines to get gas looked about like this and it took hours upon hours to get to the front of the line. Mom was concerned that if Tom didn't get gas on Friday immediately after we'd arrived, we wouldn't be able to get back to UCSB on Sunday evening, so the very first thing out of my mother's mouth upon meeting Tom was, "Carol, you come inside. Tom, you go get gas." Tom was mortified, and considered just getting gas and heading straight back to Santa Barbara! My mother was just being a German pragmatist, but if you didn't know her, it definitely came across as insulting! Fortunately, Tom and my mother came to adore each other -- but Tom always lovingly jabbed her with "I'll just go get gas" comments and she was never allowed to live that down!)
Well today, 30 years later, I saw this:
Kinda scary, isn't it?
Around here, that's the typical weekend gas line at Costco ;)
ReplyDeleteWell, since there is actually no rationing of gas,what I am actually seeing is a tie-up that's a result of people driving gas guzzlers that they probably have no need for. When gas was 99 cents a gallon only a few years ago, the line at a Costco in NJ would be thirty to forty vehicles deep, most of them SUVs. Here in Germany where gas is what, 5x the cost in Seattle, there are no lines except on holiday weekends,perhaps on the way to the beach (and not the beach in Germany!). So, feel better.Although you can still feel badly that 30 years later we never bothered to fix our depemdence on oil or even properly subsidize the solar and other alternative fules industries (and I don't count ethanol, which is actually worse than useless). Oops, I'm falling off my soap box!
ReplyDeletewhy is that line there? fear of gas shortage? Prices rising so quickly that people want to stock up?
ReplyDeleteNo lines in Belgium and prices are totally outrageous. We pay now almost 1.6€ for a liter (almost 2.5 US dollar for a liter ?? => 9.45 dollar for a gallon????). What's the price in Seattle?