Great American Gas-Out Running On Fumes
Published: May 15, 2007
With chain e-mail spreading the message like a wind-whipped Okefenokee wildfire, you can bet that gasoline retailers around Pasco County are bracing for the latest annual holiday at the pumps, and we soon can look forward to per-gallon prices dipping 30 cents or more by Wednesday.
Or not.
"I have heard talk about it," says Muna Abukhdair, "but I don't think anything will happen. People have to get to work." Muna, an Internet-impaired 54-year-old, shares with her husband, Zaki Abukhdair, 59, the responsibility for their Marathon convenience store/gas station on Seventh Street in south Dade City.
In fact - and at the risk of torturing a metaphor - disinformation shrouds the reality of the Great American Gas-Out 2007 like smoke from a distant blaze. Alas, when we take to our streets and highways, we rarely are surrounded in economists, which helps explain how even well-meaning gasoline consumers are in an eye-burning, nose-watering dark regarding the cause of skyrocketing fuel prices.
"I figure it's Bush, right?" says Sue Santiago, a recent transplant from Key West who stopped by a Wesley Chapel RaceTrac for snacks and candy. Whoever is responsible, says her pal, Mariah Goldberry, a dancer and nondriver who relies on others for transportation, "Gas prices suck." Few would argue.
That said, across Pasco, at intersections great and small, wherever fuel pumps rise like silent bandits from asphalt lakes, proprietors behind the counter are decidedly unbraced. Either they are unaware of the electronic plot to silence their cash registers, or have been through enough previous one-day gas boycotts to know such demonstrations tend to be 99 percent passion and 1 percent action.
As Muna Abukhdair says, "What are we going to do, ride bicycles? You have to be kidding."
The American Way: Running On Fumes
How auto-dependent are we? Elisa Schultz, 29, four years a Wisconsin expatriate, lives within eight blocks of her job as a daytime cashier for the Radiant store at Gall and Eiland boulevards in Zephyrhills, and even she doesn't pedal to and from. Nonetheless, with area gas prices surging toward $3 for regular, "It's getting to where it costs more to come to work [and earn a paycheck] than to stay home [and earn none]. It's outrageous," she says.
Left to Schultz, gas would cost 50 cents a gallon, but until she becomes global energy czar, she is willing to demonstrate her frustration by joining in on an absolutely senseless and futile act. "No, I won't be buying gas [today]. And I need it. I won't buy it the next day, either. I'm going to wait until I absolutely cannot drive another foot."
How Schultz's boycott plan differs from the everyday strategy of virtually every other American motorist is difficult to say. Who doesn't operate on the theory that when the needle nudges below E, the legendary reserve tank kicks in?
We're All In This Together
Still, who wouldn't like to bring Big Oil, or bad ol' George W. Bush, or both, to their knees, simply by skipping a fill-up today? I mean, if not for ourselves, then for our fellow drivers. "Someone came in for 75 cents' worth of gas," Zaki Abukhdair says. "Where are you going on that?"
Just about as far as where a one-day boycott will take us.
Better would be to check for proper tire inflation, to accelerate gently from full stops, to eliminate unnecessary trips, to moderate our highway speeds, to tend to our vehicles' proper tuning and, where reasonable, to downsize. Let's not blame Detroit and Tokyo for our affair with supersize SUVs and pickups; they build 'em because we buy 'em.
Better still would be to lean on federal lawmakers who block access to domestic oil sources in Alaska and off the coasts, new refineries and permits for nuclear power plants, and who maintain killer tariffs on imported ethanol. Left solely to international market forces, many energy experts say Brazil, with millions of farmable acres ready for easily converted sugar cane, could become the Middle East of ethanol production, minus the sectarian intrigue.
A misguided one-day slack in demand, however noble, won't solve the supply shortage, which is the long and short of today's gas price squeeze. You want to find somebody who can do something about it? See who's in the mirror.
Columnist Tom Jackson can be reached at (813) 948-4219.