“Where is the outrage?” — Bob Dole
One Thursday in May, I stopped at the Irving station on Loudon Road for gas, as I had twice a week for five years. I pulled up to my regular pump, number 2, and got out.
A new sign on the pump greeted me: “Cash customers please pay before fueling.” I returned to the car and drove away, saying good-bye forever to the Loudon Road Irving station.
I won’t pay before pumping. If I want to fill my tank, prepaying requires two trips into the store—one to overpay, and the second to get my change. I don’t mind the exercise, but I resent the mandate. Alternatively, I could make just one trip and get less than a full tank. Why would I do that?
Nor will I use a credit card. Given the choice, I would barter for gasoline. Failing that, I’m happy to pay in gold bullion, and as a last resort, I’ll use federal reserve notes. That’s it.
When I buy gas, I expect to fill the tank, then pay in cash. I do not believe I am the only person left in America with this desire, although admittedly most of the others are probably over 80. In the world that should be, we could do that.
Yes, I understand that this presents some risk to the station owner. I might pump the gas and drive away without paying. I’m sure it happens occasionally. Nevertheless, self-serve stations survived for decades without requiring prepayment. Even when gas hit $4 a gallon, the chain of Irving stations in the Concord area earned my loyalty by continuing to let me pump first—the only stations I could find where that was possible.
Why, then, with gas closer to $2, did Irving finally move to the dark side? Presumably, management realized what most other oil companies have known for several years: that sometime in the late 20th century, almost all humans in this country were spirited away and replaced with docile automatons, leaving corporate America to work its will. In short, they did it because they could.
The evidence is everywhere. Enormous increases in serving sizes for soft drinks and coffee—not demanded by consumers, but thrust on us by the suppliers—are accepted without a word. Computers are sold with no instructions beyond a picture showing you how to plug it in, and no one thinks about objecting. (You want an instruction manual for your operating system?! Go to a bookstore and buy one—for forty dollars!) Auto manufacturers try to outdo each other for the stupidest features—doors that lock automatically, headlights that can’t be turned off—and buyers dutifully subsidize the idiocy.
Shrink-wrapped, unopenable packages? Not a peep. Four dollars for a bottle of water at the movie theater? Sure, we’ll pay that. Supermarkets that require you to carry a loyalty card just to get the benefit of their everyday inflated prices? Well, if that’s what it takes . . . .
As the traditional motto of American business, “The customer is always right,” has evolved into “Bend over and grab your ankles,” the collective response of consumers has been, “Duh, okay.”
Which brings us to gas stations. A few years ago, “Pay at the pump!” was an exciting new feature, with strong appeal for the huge majority of Americans for whom convenience trumps everything—who would, if they could, live their entire lives in their pajamas, managing every life activity with a remote control or a computer mouse.
That was fine, so long as the rest of us—those who prefer the mindfulness of handing dollar bills to a living being—had a reasonable option. Soon, however, the oil companies’ contempt for their customers took over, and the pay-before-pumping dictate was adopted almost universally.
Remember how everyone rebelled? Oh, right. Neither do I. No one cared.
As it turns out, no one cares about anything. Caring requires one to be awake. If gas stations started posting signs saying, “Cash customers, please strip naked and cluck like a chicken,” the somnambulant masses would obey.
“You make things hard for yourself,” I was told when I raised the subject at the office—the unspoken but unmistakable message being that all would be well if only I would conform.
Of course—conform! It worked for Petain, right? Not to suggest that paying before pumping, or carrying a Shaw’s card, or buying a “super-sized” Coke, is the equivalent of collaborating with the Nazis, but I think I recognize a slippery slope when I see one. If you don’t see the straight line from the 20-ounce soda bottle to the rise of Al Qaeda, you’re just not looking. In any event, the idea that timorous acceptance is the best policy bumps up against my heartfelt belief that we were given brains for a reason.
For the next several days I trolled the streets of Concord for a pump-first option. Initially, my only success came at an unbearable price: the Shell station on Route 106 allows pump-first, but at the expense of being subjected to—this will require a column of its own—”Gas Station TV.” You can’t make this stuff up. I would pluck my eyes out before I would spend a dollar there.
When I finally tried the Concord Farm convenience store at the intersection of Pleasant and Fruit, it was like coming home. I swear I heard angels singing when I lifted the handle, pressed the button, and saw the pump reset to zero.
I’ve been there twice a week ever since, and will no longer buy gas anywhere else in Concord. It’s out of my way, but I like the fact that the Asian family (Indian, I believe) that owns the store hasn’t yet assimilated the American belief that every stranger is a criminal. Better yet, if you want to pay at the pump . . . you can’t! No, every customer has to walk into the store—pajamas and all—and deal with a person. The plastimaniacs have to hand their credit cards to the cashier.
It’s a joy to see the dazed expressions as they desperately scour the pump for a place to insert their cards. It comes as such a shock that some of them are even jarred into temporary consciousness as they put down their cell phones or pull out their headphones for a second to deal with the emergency.
Anything this good, of course, can’t last. Eventually, the owners will get an offer they can’t refuse from some oil company, and that will be that. In preparation, I am considering my options: buy a bicycle, hope a fully electric car will come on the market, or drill my own oil well. In the meantime, I’ll keep inching back from the edge of my ever-shrinking patch of ice, cursing the tide until it finally overtakes me.
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Editor’s notes: Once again I find myself apologizing for the long intermission. I really do expect the pace to pick up a little over the next few months.
Thanks to all who offered answers to my questions last time. I’m still not sure why people claim to like Girl Scout cookies. Some answered by merely reasserting the claim: they actually do like Girl Scout cookies. Come one.
I liked my brother’s answer that he buys them for the tax write-off. However, that’s merely a reason for buying them, not for claiming to like them. The best explanations were “mass hypnosis” and “an auto response based on social cues—the Girl Scouts are good, and therefore their cookies must be good.” I suspect the truth is in there somewhere.
