My dad and I are settled into our hotel in Corvallis. Here's a brief summary of the trip: 2500 miles. 10 states. 4 1/2 days. 2 drivers. For the most part, not very fun. I think it was less painful than my drive to Tallahassee though. Probably beucase we didn't go through Southern states. We didn't get into most of our books on CD, but I did get The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Tertiary Phase) radio play and I enjoyed it greatly.
Did you know it's illegal to pump your own gas in Oregon? I thought it was a joke. It's not. I looked it up to figure out why such a stupid law would be in effect. Apparently it was passed in 1951, ostensibly for safety reasons but really to keep gas station attendants employed. And I guess a combination of the powerful gas-station-attendent-lobby and good old inertia keeps it in effect. So this brings two questions up in my mind:
1. How is this law enforcable? I mean, if I pump my own gas is the attendent really going to call the police and have them chase me down when they could be doing something useful instead? Even if they catch me, I can probably play the Michigan card and say I thought the guy was joking.
2. What is the penalty for breaking this law? (I did some research, and several people claim it's a $500 fine or potentially even jail time. I have yet to find the actual law though.)
I've only had one fill-up here in Oregon so far, but if I'm going to live here for two years I'm gonna need some more gas. I think the act of pumping gas includes putting the nozzle back in its slot. So in today's incident when the tank was full and the idiot attendent was 'helping' someone else, I just put the damn thing back, took my receipt and left, effectively making me a lawbreaker. I may be able to get used to having some dolt pump my gas for me, but I'm not going to play their stupid games if it's going to waste my time. My tank is already half empty and I'm rueing the day when I have to go back.
I know it's not a big deal and I'm not really looking for trouble. I just hate it when the government gets involved in stupid day-to-day things like this. Politically I appear to be a moderate, but I really consider myself to be orthogonal to the axis of left vs. right. My projection onto said axis is currently a little left of center. I say that because I hate George W. Bush. I basically have a libertarian position that the government should take care of a handful of certain things, and stay the hell out of everything else.
Bet you didn't expect to see a prolonged rant about pumping gas, eh? Anyway, my new mission is to find an apartment and furnish it, thus establishing a base of operations in Oregon.
5 comments:
Welcome to the Pacific time zone, the place where you don't have to adjust your regional settings at all when you reinstall Windows!
Ah yes, now I remember that law about pumping gas. Crazy Oregonians. Also, remember to say it rhyming with "organ", not with "gone".
I rode in a Prius today. Where GM cars would have a GPS-type device, it had some sort of monitor for the amount of energy currently in the battery. And the speedometer was moved as far up as possible, right underneath the windshield. I was pretty comfortable in it, which means you should have no trouble fitting. In the front seat, at least.
That's a classic Jon rant!
Dammit Mike, now I want one even more. haha
Also, a bonus side effect of having a Prius: higher MPG = less fill-ups = less chances to break stupid gas pumping law.
Adam: right up there with the Khaki rant, eh?
I gassed up today... the stupid "London is directly linked to oil" / "Hurricane's gonna destroy all our oil processing facilities" scare is over, so prices dropped 15 cents a gallon overnight. (if only they dropped the full 20 cents they hiked it to begin with.) $30 for a tank of gas blows.
Perhaps not quite Khaki greatness, but excellent nevertheless.
Post a Comment