1 Happy St

There's a gas station by my house where the main digital sign was showing $4.10 per gallon for unleaded gas. So I pulled in, but when I got to the pump, the price was showing $4.30 per gallon.

Wait, was this one of those credit card scams where they were charging me more for paying with a credit card rather than cash?

No, I hadn't used my credit card yet. So what was the dilly?

I looked at the main digital sign a little closer and right next to the $4.10 was a note in small letters that said "with the purchase of a 12" Cousins sub".

Son of a bitch. And nowhere on that sign did it say anything about gas being $4.30 without the sandwich. Foolin' bastages.

[NOTE: Jane will pay you $5 if you correctly guess the quote in the title]

This guy's protest doesn't make much sense to me. He drove onto the lawn of a convention center, hopped out of his car, doused the car with gasoline and lit it on fire. By the time the fire was put out, his car was no more. His reason? He's tired of rising gas prices and could no longer afford to drive the car. Okay I guess it's a statement, even if it is a dumb one.

But pay attention to the last line of the article: As in many countries, gasoline prices have risen steadily in Germany; a liter of regular gasoline now costs about euro1.55, or $9.40 per gallon.

That just pisses me off. I hate when these news organizations try to translate the cost of gasoline for foreign countries but convert the exchange rate first. That completely skews it. 1 gallon of gas is equal to about 3.785 liters. So doing the math, that's $5.87/gallon. But what these news organizations do is they account for the exchange rate first. And because the euro dominates the dollar in terms of worth, the $5.87 figure jumps up to $9.40. It's a load of crap though because a guy in Germany isn't using an American dollar to buy his gas. He's using euros. That he earned at his job THAT PAYS EUROS!!!!!

I'm trying to think of an equivalent here....okay I got it [I think]. It would be like me complaining that I paid $250,000 for my house when my friend from [a poor state] bought a similar house for $40,000. Of course I wouldn't mention that the best jobs in the state where my friend lives only pays a fraction of the salary that my state does.

Hogwash.

So remember this tactic the next time you see a story that says Americans still have it good with gas prices.

[NOTE: This entire post was just an excuse to use the word "hogwash"]

The Meijer store down the street from my work has a gas station attached to it. Whenever I buy gas there, I'm always greeted by a voice that talks to me from the pump's speaker that says "Thank you for choosing Meijer". I had never paid much attention to it before, but today was different.

Just as I was about to pump my gas, the voice said to me "Thank you for choosing Meijer, Sir."

What the fuck?

Sir? How did it know I was a guy?

"You're welcome," I responded quietly. Then I started to look around to see if anybody was pointing and laughing at me, like "hey, check out the guy on that show where we record people getting harrassed and frustrated for America's enjoyment". But nobody was pointing or laughing at me.

"Wait, are you a real person?" I asked the fuel pump.

"Yes," the fuel pump answered.

Holy crap. All this time, the "thank you for choosing Meijer" guy was a real freaking guy, whose job it is apparently to say "thank you for choosing Meijer" to hundreds of people a day. Unreal.

He was probably getting pissed that people were never answering him.

I get paid on the 5th and 20th of every month, and it's usually for the same dollar amount. For those of you who know me, you know how insane I am about balancing my checkbook and making sure each and every deduction and deposit is marked clearly line by line. So that is why I am a little concerned about a discovery I recently made.

Today is May 19th, so I looked back to see what my checkbook balance was on April 19th, and it was $125 higher. On March 19th, it was $150 higher than in April, and on February 19th, it was $300 higher than in March. I'm not rich enough for this trend to continue any further.

I blame OPEC.