Sunday, June 22, 2008

As promised, a post regarding the least serious subject in the universe

Boy oh boy, do I love to fart! Let me tell you all about a subject that is near and dear to my heart, and that rhymes with...

Just kidding. I'm not going to write about farts. Although I could. And might later. Because I do love 'em ever so much.






Speaking of farts, that's about all that Jeeves has been running on for the last couple of days so I absolutely had to get gas today. The tank was so empty the car actually had trouble starting. I drove immediately to my local Sunoco station, which is not only the closest station but is also usually a few cents cheaper than most places. The sign by the road said $3.90 a gallon which is really good for around here right now. When I got to the pump however, the price was $3.95. Bummer. I figured the price had actually just gone up and they just hadn't updated the street sign. I started pumping my gas and as i was finishing up, all the pumps started beeping. I thought that was kind of weird because it was pretty early in the morning, about 7:30, and I was the only person there getting gas. I couldn't figure out why the pumps would be making noise. But when I got done pumping, returned the nozzle to it's cradle and finished paying, my pump beeped too. I looked down and the price had gone down to $3.90! "Ain't that a bi...", I thought and went inside. "Hey, the price just went down!", I said to the woman behind the register. "Yep, sure did! I just changed it a minute ago", she replied happily. 'Yeah, no shit. I figured out your sinister beeping pumps', I thought to myself and mentioned that I had just paid the higher price which didn't seem entirely fair. She said something about being sorry about that, no refunds on gas purchases. "Yeah, but come on. If I had just stopped at a single red light on the way here, I'd have gotten the benefit of the lower price", I protested. "You shouldn't run red lights", she chastised. "Being in a hurry and driving recklessly is not only dangerous but cuts down on your fuel economy as well." Abandoning this argument, I pointed out that the big sign advertised a price that wasn't available when I pulled in, amounting to what is basically a bait-and-switch. Wouldn't it be better to change the price on the pumps before changing the sign and give the customer a pleasant surprise instead of the other way around? She just looked at me with a "now why in the world would we want to do that?" expression on her face. Realizing that I was arguing about less than a dollar and that I wasn't going to win anyway, I gave up and left. But not before taking four cents out of the Take A Penny Leave A Penny cup. Take that, greedy oil barons! The consumer strikes back and as a result Christmas is going to be just that much less merry in Dubai this year.

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