The Price of Freedom?

Americans love their cars. I don’t know about too many other cities, but this is especially true in Charlotte. Charlotte has buses, and we’re even building a multi-billion dollar light rail system that no one will ride. This is so we can be World Class, because that’s important or something. But we still have our cars, and they still need gas to go.

As you may have surmised, I had to fill up today. I was hoping to avoid it, but the little light had been on for at least 20 miles and the needle was at the bottom of the gauge too. It simply had nowhere to go. It was so close I took a half can of lawnmower gas that is who knows how old with me, just in case. So I risked it, especially since my wife said that the lines weren’t that bad. Once I got out there, I found out why.

My informal survey of four gas stations on the East Side of Charlotte showed that none of them had regular or mid-grade gasoline in the pumps. Only premium, with a price that varied between $3.19 and $3.39 per gallon. You wonder if they have really run dry on those others – it’s certainly possible, seeing the lines last night – or if they just shut them off so they could pump some premium out of the depths of the holding tanks. Who knows?

In any case, the fourth station I came upon was a little unique. This is the Citgo station out in front of the Lowe’s and Target complex on Albemarle Road, across from Wal-Mart. All prices were $2.99. Of course, they only had premium, which seems to put a hole in the other theory. But at $2.99? Who cares? This is better than the prices that I saw last night that had people waiting in lengthy lines for regular. I waited for a moment, but it was only to talk to a man pumping his gas and check the price before I pulled into a slot myself. Life is good.