The price of driving

I'm sure it's no secret to most of you, especially those living on the West Coast, that the price of gasoline has skyrocketed in the last couple of months.  I had the chance encounter to fill up at a Shell service station in Los Angeles two months ago and was surprised by the high tech greeting that I got. As I lifted the nozzle from its holder, I was greeted with a verbal 'hello' but couldn't figure out who was greeting me--until I looked above me and noticed that there was a TV screen that had a person on it who was apparently talking to me, the consumer. I have to say it brought back thoughts of Skynet and of some episode of the X-files that I couldn't put my finger on.

I proceeded to fill up the rental car and watched as the TV changed from the 'hello' to some sort of music video. I have no idea how Shell would know I would like such a thing (and in fact, it wasn't my cup of tea) but I found it fascinating--perhaps this was Big Oil's way of making the fact that I had to spend $30 to get 7 gallons of gas OK.  You know, the whole "lull them into an entertainment sleep and then they won't care that they spent their grocery money on gas--they might even be happy about it!"

On a slightly less cynical note, I recently filled up at a gas station in the University District of Seattle.  I didn't go to my usual station since there wasn't one nearby so I was a bit confused at first as to how to get the gas a-flowin'.  I put the nozzle in my tank's opening, swiped my credit card and hoped for the best, but the pump kept beeping at me, letting me know that I still needed to do something, but I couldn't figure out what that was!  Finally it dawned on me that I still needed to lift the lever on the pump itself and that would release the fuel into the desert that was my car's tank.  

I have always taken the gas pump as something for granted, but in that instance, I suddenly felt severe empathy for anyone who was new to filling up or couldn't read english or some one who was a bit older and confused a lot.  There was no way they were going to get out of this with gas in their car without help--and when's the last time you saw a Full Service service station?