The gas price sign at my neighbourhood station said 92.9 cents per litre and that’s where I draw the line.
“I’ll walk barefoot uphill both ways before I’ll pay that,” I thought, when I saw it. Wasn’t it just a couple years back that gas was in the 60s?
So, the strategy was clear and simple. Inspired, really. Pop only $5 of the stuff at a time into the old jalopy until the boycott brought the price back down. Supply and demand. No demand, lots of supply. Prices dropping like a stone. This was one time it was going to pay to be an economics genius.
However, my gas station didn’t seem to be up on the law of supply and demand and obstinately stuck to its guns, refusing to crack under the strain of my almost daily soup-can fill ups. But, I can be a very patient man.
The days went by, the gas indicator needle sat on E. To me, the E has always indicated, “Enough to get me another 50 miles.”
A five here and a five there and I could see a definite nervousness on the faces of the teenagers who took my money. How long can we hold out, I could see they were thinking.
Last week, I gave the old E theory a run for its money. Up and down Ontario and Huron streets I chugged. By Friday afternoon, quittin’ time, we’d both had our fill – no pun intended (but if you think it was funny, then it was intended) – of the week. But chugging up the hill around Scotiabank, heading east, my engine began to shudder. Time for a tune up, it was clear. Up to the stoplight at Erie, the car began to shake. I slipped it into neutral to give it a chance to recover. I wondered if the spark plugs were dirty. Out Ontario Street my car and I progressed, hitting every stoplight along the way. All four lanes going both ways were packed with what is Stratford’s pretty significant Friday afternoon rush hour – or rush minute as some have called it.
Finally, at the corner, half a block from my home, loomed the big gas price sign, obstinate as ever: 92.9.
Time, I was resigned, for another $5.
But time, this time, was not on my side. Fifty feet from this main intersection, with beachgoers and theatregoers and mall shoppers and downtown diners all heading in their various directions, packing all four lanes full to overflowing, my jalopy died.
And so, almost, did I.
The first stage, of course, is denial but a lot of key turning produced nothing.
Finally, it was time to abandon ship.
Running like a 10-year-old after a rabbit, I dashed to my blessed gas station, under the sign with the 92.9. It could have said 922.9 it would have made no difference. Gas. Blessed gas. Just give me some gas.
The station, it turns out, doesn’t lend out gas cans, especially to boycotters, even when the attendants can see a guy’s car, stuck in traffic, part way up someone’s driveway, with a police car waiting patiently behind it.
Down went $12.95 of my hard-earned cash (is there any other kind) for a plastic gas can and some gas.
Back to the car to find that the spout on this little red miracle apparently fits every gas tank but mine. Gas splashes everywhere, except into the tank. I am reduced to trying to feed it with my fingers into the tank, all the while refusing all eye contact with the world.
Fortunately, I own the one car in the world that can actually run on fumes. I scream around the corner and up to a pump.
Twenty dollars later, the boycott has partially ended.
Jalopy and I live to fight another day.
©2005 Jim Hagarty
