A Gas Idiot

[Alryk]

I was reading a few posts on here and it reminded me of this story.

Backround: About 10 years ago I ran a convience store that sold gas. I usually had to work the 2nd shift because there was only a total of 3 people that worked there (including me)

Me = Me
GI = Gas Idiot

Me: What can I do for you?
GI: Can I get $0.75 on pump 1?

Seriously?!? You are buying less than a dollar of gas?!? Where the fuck are you going, or think you can go on that amount of gas you moron?? I was able to wait until he left to laugh my ass off.

Story #2 (just remembered this one as I was typing the first one)

I was into a Dunkin Donuts to get my morning coffee. One I went to on occasion, but not every day. I walkup to the counter with a silver Dunkin Donuts mug with the top placed upside down on the mug. The girl behind the counter takes the mug, and fils it with coffee....now here is the funny part. She walk back to the counter with the mug in one hand, and the cover in the other. She proceeds to try to put the top of the mug on upside down (the way I left it on the counter) She tries to do this a few times, look at me really confused and gives me the mug. I take the top, hold it up, turn it over, and put it on the bottom of the mug and walk out to my car. Halfway to my car I realized what just happened( wtf?!?!??!?!?!? how stupid are you not to be able to put aq coffee mug together after you fil it with coffe???? No less, one that your company sells!!)

Good thing I wasn't awake yet, or I probably would have said something.

[Betweenshades]

75 cents? What decade are we in again?

[Andara Bledin]

I've actually bought less than $1 of gas. Because that was every bit of change I could scrounge from the seats after I discovered that 1) I would never make it home on the gas that was in the tank, and 2) my wallet was not in my coat pocket where it belonged.

^-.-^

[BrenDAnn]

I've had people get lowball amounts like that before. I always laugh. I realize some people are poor, but wow. $1 is not even 1/3 of a gallon of gas right now where I am. Amazing.

[Tama]

Given, 10 years ago, that MIGHT have gotten you almost a 1/2 gallon of gas....

[dalesys]

3.3 to 4.5 gallons... when I was a teen.

[Caractacus_Potts]

#1) Eh...when I was a teen I sometimes found myself without enough gas to be sure I could make it home and no money. Any change I could find and convert to gas gave me a better chance of not being stranded on the side of the road. I figured it was better than filling up and then taking off without paying.

#2) Good thing I wasn't awake yet, or I probably would have said something.

I guess she wasn't awake yet either.

Bonus: My gas station witnessed SC story.

I walk into a gas station and an SC is screaming at the cashier. Apparently SC bought smokes and is outraged that the station does not provide free matches. SC is convinced the station is scamming him trying to force him to PAY for a lighter while withholding all those free matches they have behind the counter. The guy finally pauses for breath allowing the cashier to interject...

Cashier: Sir, most people who light there cigarette with a lighter don't throw the still lit lighter onto the ground into a puddle of spilled gasoline. We don't have matches.

SC: Oh...uhm...I guess I'll take a lighter.

[Geek King]

One possible explanation for the tiny amount of gas is gas motor model airplanes/boats/cars. Most folks I've seen using them have a small squirt bottle for filling the tank, as even a small one gallon container is too awkward to fill from. That's all I can think of, at least.

[Argabarga]

Maybe he just needed his daily fix?

[Ben_Who]

Oo my turn! (One of these days we'll change how we determine people's age from "number of years since birth" to "price of gas since they learned how to drive.") A dollar's worth of gas was my daily commute. I was driving a big, rusty boat of a car, and round trip to school and back was about 17 miles.

The reason this intrigues me is that now, 22 years later, my daily commute is about a dollar's worth of gasoline again - only this time I drive a subcompact and only travel 11 miles.

It's a little awkward. I never let the tank run so dry that getting home depends on my pocket change, but if I had to measure the potential gas savings of taking the toll freeway and paying the toll vs. spending toll money on 50 cents worth of gasoline and burning more fuel on SR 77, it might be a close race.

Love, Who?

[tropicsgoddess]

Those SC's really OD'd on the stupid pills.

[Racket_Man]

had one guy on a scooter buy 50 cents in gas and this was when it was around the $2.50 mark

3.3 to 4.5 gallons... when I was a teen.

a Dollar would ahve bought 6.5 gallons US when I was pre-teen before the Arab oil embargo thing happened.

[wolfie]

One possible explanation for the tiny amount of gas is gas motor model airplanes/boats/cars. Most folks I've seen using them have a small squirt bottle for filling the tank, as even a small one gallon container is too awkward to fill from. That's all I can think of, at least.

Most of the "Gas" motor models are actually glow motors - they take a methanol/castor oil mix (usually, but not always, with nitromethane added).

[Shalom]

Two things come to mind:

1. The scene in the film version of The Grapes Of Wrath where the Joads drive up in their 1925 Ford truck and park at the pump.

Attendant, brightly: "How many, folks?"
Mr Joad, scowling: " . . . One."
Attendant glares at him.

2. When I was a kid, I read a book (which was pretty old even then) about motorcycles, and it had a chapter on how to deal with certain circumstances. What we'd call a FAQ today, although that initialism hadn't been coined as of the date of publication. I don't remember the exact text, but it was something like:

Q: How do you deal with the embarrassment of riding up to the gas pump and buying one gallon of gas after the station wagon in front of you has just inhaled $8.00 worth?
A: Smile brightly at the attendant and say, "Fill 'er up!"

So when I read that, I was puzzled. It didn't occur to me until much later that at the time the book was written (pre-1973), $8 worth of gas was an insanely large quantity, and the motorcycle would have gotten maybe 35¢ worth.

(Oh yeah, I can remember my mother telling me once, long ago, "I can remember when gas was 35¢ a gallon in Brooklyn, and I swore I'd never pay 50¢ like they charged in Manhattan. And I never did, either, it went straight up to 65¢..." Boy those were the days. Remember when it first went over 99.9¢/gal, and every pump had to be modified to show prices over a dollar? And the interim solutions of charging per half gallon and doubling the price, along with complications involving SCs who couldn't multiply by two and couldn't comprehend why they had to pay twice what it said on the pump? Or worse, charging by the liter when most Americans hadn't dealt with the metric system since grade school, if even then?

Also, I used to live in Buffalo, and if I'd be heading out to Toronto for pizza or whatever (that being the nearest kosher pizza shop), I'd take a side-trip to Smokin' Joe's gas station on the Tuscarora Nation reservation to fill up on tax-free fuel. Gas in Buffalo had gone all the way up to $1.35, and was over $2 in Canada - insane! - but I could get it for $1.04 on the Rez...)

[Mytical]

I think the lowest I remember (and this was in my late teens) was .49c. I will never forget, however, one time when it had hit 1.69c a gallon.

I was going through a town, and noticed gas for .99c a gallon from two seperate gas stations, right next to a third that had the 1.69c a gallon..

Then one changed to .89c a gallon. I decide to stop and get some gas, and a line was forming..but I was only 4th in line, so no biggy. The other station suddenly went to .85c a gallon. They were having a pricing war. By the time I got in and pumped my gas, I had gotten it for .69c a gallon (they dropped FAST) Both places had lines miles long. What is funny though is, the 1.69c place was still doing good business..AND everybody who was waiting in line for the cheaper gas was buying drinks/etc from that place.