Gas at 22 cents a gallon!

JamesCO: you might like this one -
A man held a door open for a woman and as she approached she told him, "I don't need a man to open a door for me". He replied,
"I'm so sorry. I was trying to be a gentleman but I see you're no lady".

Woodspirit: I truly believe the people with low incomes weren't driving their cars when gas prices were so high and they're the least likely to have taken advantage. I just heard on the news that gas prices in Kuwait are at .83 per gallon. So how could anyone even try to fool themselves into thinking .22 was "a sale", "a bargain" or "a good deal".

I do my best to ignore the ramblings of anyone trying to write dialect, as I did above. I'm not a southerner but "pirl" is in honor of my dear departed neighbor who taught me to garden, Pauline Isabelle Reid Loeffler, and she was born and raised in Albemarle, N.C. She did have that sweet soft southern accent but never once came across as an idiot.

dmc: I had my message half written and went for a cup of coffee while you sent in your reply so I didn't see it until the notice, that a new entry was made, came up on the screen.

Some people do react as if they'd been stabbed if you smile or say "Good Morning". In so many other areas it's almost required to greet a stranger when taking a walk, shopping, etc.

We were silly 22 year olds from all over and thought it was hysterical to freak people out by smiling (it wasn't my idea to be honest, I was REALLY a hick). the elevator thing really worked. I thought it was awful at the time that people would be afraid of "an innocent smile". Especially after 9/11 I realize that the fear is of any unusual, unexpected, or unpredictable behavior, in a place where there are real threats.
(I love being in the country where my sister observed on her first visit"people wave with all five fingers")
Likewise I advise my teenage daughters not to seek out or make eye contact with strangers, but to be polite and maintain distance. It's sad but true in many places.

I guess it seems more like not putting accelerant on a spark. (this from someone who was born 100 years too late and would've kept a pitcher of lemonade on the front porch for passersby...who tries SO HARD not to get really down about the way things seem to be going)

dmc: loved your comment about waving!!!

The first time my DH and I went to a country inn and took an early morning walk a passerby waved and said, "Good morning", I asked my DH if he knew the person. That's how naive I was.

Now we live out in the country and everyone has a nice greeting, people wave from cars and call out compliments on our gardens. We love it.

LOL! Isn't it funny how suspicious you get when you're in that environment all the time? And I am very thankful to be away from most of it now. And when people wave I don't swivel my head trying to figure out who or why, I just wave back. Ain't life grand?

dmc: life is too good to be true!

We live in an area with a lot of landscape workers from Guatemala and they began riding bikes due to the cost of gas. I realize many people had to cut corners to afford the gas.

I remember years when we didn't take vacations because just the cost for my hospitalization was over $800. a month. I remember a lot more hot dogs or grilled cheese than lamb chops or going out. On the worst days of my life I'd still never be tempted to put someone else's job in great jeopardy by taking advantage of an error.

I remember those days very well, Pirl. I was a 20 yr old "2nd wife" with 2 new sons, 6 and 11. Hubby was still paying off medical bills from first wife. I worked 2 jobs, 7 days a week. It was tough but we had fun. The boys still tease me about my first "bullet proof" potroast !!
I remember wondering which bill could go to the next month. I also remember coming to my Mom and Dad's for dinner on weekends....yummmy :))
Life is made-up of old memories partnered with future plans. Being able to look back with few regrets and look forward with much optimism is a gift not to be taken lightly.
Happy Thanksgiving,
Margo

Happy Thanksgiving to you Margo and to all.

Sometimes I think back to those early days and I'm so grateful they're a distant memory. I don't have a bullet proof pot roast but I do remember having California hot dogs, in a chafing dish, no less, for Thanksgiving when the cost of a mother-in-law in a nursing home didn't leave money for Thanksgiving and I did walk to work.

I felt terrible about the time or two last late fall when I was out too late to bike almost 8 miles to school, but now those thought are frozen like the temperatures. I still think I will try to bike a time or two this winter under the shadow of getting a nasty cold/flu/thing.

How is it that threads like these denegrate into people making jabs at others for their writing styles? If someone's style rankles you, skip their posts. Life's too short to alientate people over trivial stuff, you know? Tragedies in many peoples' lives have borne the truth of this.

gardenwife: Just my point of view but.......why should I be forced to leave my own thread because I can't stand the ramblings of anyone who resorts to writing dialect? Then I'm giving in to a bully. If they follow me from thread to thread then it's really bullying and I (along with the others who can't tolerate it) are forced to give in and give up. We may as well quit DG.

Our children or grandchildren are taught to ignore the bullies the best they can and it's what I try for but I'll be darned if they'll force me off my own thread. That's rude and unacceptable.

Even the famous authors who wrote using dialect didn't use it for personal correspondence.

Like I said, life's too short.

Life is too short to rankle or be rankled.

Life is also too short to judge other peoples actions without knowing their individual circumstances, if at all. Absolutely each of us is entitled to our opinion, but that is where we should leave it.

As James said above "(You might even have to die before goodness 'comes around.'
Just reading in Luke..)" I agree 100% James

I think it is important that each of us take responsibility for ourselves and those under our care and do our best to not condem others. Just know in the end YOU do the right things.

Ok now trying to get back on the original topic...
I do know here that if mistakes are made or say someone drives off without paying for the gas they pumped. I would not be liable to my employer to repay that money unless I signed a statment prior to my employment stating I was liable. This very thing happened to my sil, her employer tried to deduct it from her pay. It was considered an illegal deduction and she was reimbursed. That is what insurance is for. Oh yes the employer could "release" you from your position for continued mistakes, but they cannot take your pay.

It's fine to say we're not to judge and leave that for juries but we all do pay higher prices for everything when employee and customer theft is taken into account.

Ok, I'm gonna be honest, but nobody throw anything...unless it's chocolate or some other delicious edible. OK?

No one stole from the store owner. The posted price was 22 cents so that is all that anyone was expected to pay. It is not the customer's duty to tell a store owner what his prices should be.

Furthermore, the owner should hire someone with some sense. The kid should have taken the initiative and phoned the owner on his cell phone. (Just about every business owner has one) He should have said, should I close until we correct this because you're gonna lose some major money.

The loss is entirely the responsibility of the store owner, not the customers. Customers hunt for deals and they didn't steal anything. They paid the posted price. They were accidentally given permission to buy gas for 22 cents. Someone had a Lucy moment (one of those times of stupidity displayed on I Love Lucy), and it was a costly mistake for the owner and possibly his employee.

I'm sure more than one person did ask the boy why gas was so cheap and the idiot just shrugged his shoulders and mumbled "I 'on't know." So if he loses his job, maybe he'll learn a valuable lesson--THINK!

Had I been near a station selling gas for 22 cents, you can bet I'd be in line. If the gas isn't supposed to be sold for 22 cents a gallon, then don't tell me it is. Or don't be open when I drive in. I'm only responsible for what is on the price sticker. I'm not responsible for the idiot who slapped the sticker on the product.

And that's my honest opinion (I say, as I duck in anticipation of flying "debris").

BC

I told Howie about this story, and he immediately said, "How did people know it wasn't some promotion to get people to go to their station? I'd think it was, and I'd have filled up". He reminded me that a couple years ago, a few gas stations in town did a promotion where gas was sold at really cheap prices. It wasn't 22-cents/gallon, but it was well under $1.00/gallon. I'd forgotten all about that. Talk about lines at those stations!

Nancy,

So if you post an item on eBay and put the decimal point in the wrong place and sell 1,000 packages of canna and daylilies for 99 cents instead of $9.90 you'd feel fine being ripped off?

In your brain you know the gas costs more than that, raw, unprocessed, in a barrel. It's not a sale, it's an error.

Yes, I've seen gas wars but nobody is ever $2.50 a gallon cheaper than the guy across the street, unless one is a gouger. I just couldn't take advantage like that. Our supermarket posts the errors in price on the front door and many times you'd think people would realize it was a typo but so many people feel invited to a sale when it's just an error.

Butterfly Chaser - I'm ducking here too, cuz you just put into words what I was thinking all along, eg posted price is the right price and what a deal! I don't think I would assume it was a mistake, just as I *almost* did after Katrina, that can't be the right price, can it??
I'm no angel, but I'm a hard-working, tax-paying, really nice person who you betcha would've topped off the tank! Now if I *knew* the guy made a mistake, I would be the first to point it out to him, ask anyone, I'm not known for being bashful! We don't even have any stations here that are not self-serve, so that would make it even more likely that I would believe it was some promotion, if the guy was pumping it for the customer. I also know for a fact that you can't deduct shortages from a person's pay, esp. when they make minimum wage. Did you ever hear the saying "buyer beware"? Turnabout is fair play. That's my honest opinion. **Still ducking**

dmcdevitt, when my spousal unit went to Guildford College in Greensboro, NC, he said some of the students were from up north. While walking around campus, it was common to say hello to those you passed, even if you didn't know them. The northerners were all freaked out by this. He said they wondered if he was some kind of maniac, lol. Here's a funny little story. My spousal unit went into A&P and got groceries. He helped bag them and load them in the cart and walked out without paying. Later, he stopped for gas and wondered why he still had so much money in his wallet and then realized he hadn't paid for the groceries.
So he drove back to pay for the money. Just as he walked in, the checker was saying, "well, if he doesn't come back and pay for them, I hope he CHOKES on them."
When she turned around and saw him, he said he blushed so heavily that he thought she was going to have a stroke, lol. All's well that ends well.
I am dying to buy Jimmy Carter's new book, "Endangered American Values" (I think that's the name). Here is someone with a scruplous reputation who thinks it is time to draw the line.

Pirl, if I post a price on Ebay and the items sell for that price before I can make a price revision, I'm under a legal contract to give the buyer the items at the posted price. Ebay doesn't allow you to alter the price once you have one bidder. I MUST sell at that price, even though I know I made a mistake (And I have made an error before and had to sell too cheaply). I can't say, sorry folks, I made a mistake and put the decimel in the wrong place. But you can bet as soon as possible I'll correct my mistake with the next auction.

And yeah, I might feel cheated, but it's my own error that cheated me. If you "caught the deal", it's not YOUR fault I posted the wrong price. YOU didn't steal from me. You merely took advantage of the great deal you found.

You can't tell me that the boy pumping the gas was unaware. If he was, he was a moron. And I'm not responsible for the employees the owner hires. Changing the price on the pump is a pretty simple affair. You don't even need a high school diploma for that. So the manager, or whoever he assigned the task, should have verified that they posted the right price. And if they didn't, they should have corrected it immediately. If they don't, then it's their loss, just as it would be my loss if I posted the wrong price.

The consumer is not responsible for the employer's inability to hire and oversee competent employees. I stand by my statement: No one stole. The consumers paid the price they were asked to pay and no one should expect anything more of them.

When my dog had heartworms, the vet told me he could "probably" cure him for $500, but he may die in the process. $500 is a lot of money for me. So I called around to find a better price.

I ended up with a wonderful new vet who cured my dog for $50 without any complications at all. Now should I be telling my vet that I'm "robbing" him because other vets are charging 10 times what he is? He is much cheaper on every service he offers than the others in town. Am I stealing from him? Is his $50 fee a mistake? Did he have the decimel in the wrong place? Did he mean $500? I don't have time to try to read everyone's mind and correct every seller's pricing error. I'm there to buy and if you got it cheaper than anyone else, you've got my business.

BC

To me "taking advantage" is still wrong when you know it's an error. Would you brag about it to your minister?

If the price is posted 22 cents, if I want it, I'll buy it. And it would be a great deal and I'd brag to anyone who'd listen. "Hey, I just got gas for 22 cents a gallon! Can you believe that?"

Back in the summer I was at Lowes in a city in TN. I found a great deal on dragon's blood sedum, 25 cents for a 4" pot. I love this sedum, so I put 5 flats of it in my cart. I also found a canna for $5 and a Hilo Beauty ee for $20.

When I got to the register, I told the clerk that most of the plants came off the 25 cent rack but not the canna or the ee. When she gave me my total of less than $6, I asked, "Are you sure?" I knew the sedum alone would come out to about $15! The clerk said, "We need to clear some of these plants out, so I just charged you 69 cents for each thing." 69 cents per flat. So I asked, "Well what about the canna and the ee?" She said, "Those too." Ok, so I tried to set her straight and she was sure she was right. So I took my buggy full of bargains and went home. I'm sure the canna and the ee were supposed to be full priced and she was sure she could discount them, so who am I to say?

And no, I don't feel guilty for the bargains. Management is responsible for its employees' mistakes. Management needs to correct them. I paid what was asked of me and walked away feeling pretty happy with my bargains. I was willing to pay more but they didn't ask me to. And no, I don't feel guilty about it. And yes, I will brag about it.

BC

THIS THREAD IS CLOSED.

I just have to add this, even knowing that its closed (sorry pirl)


Even if the billboard was posted at .22, which is obviously an error, who changed the price at the actual pump to compute the actual sale at .22?

Arlene, it seems my opinion upset you since you closed this post after our discussion. You did ask for opinions and I did give mine with no intention of angering anyone, but rather to show a different perspective on the situation. I'm sorry I upset you, my friend.

I do hope your pain is still managed and that the swelling has gone down so that you can enjoy your Thanksgiving dinner. I hope you are feeling better.

BC