>>> Edited For Content
By staff writerMike Forest
June 8, 2005
Summer. Season of travel. Season of vacation. Season of…sun. This is the time of year when everyone hops in their car and drives somewhere: the beach, the cottage, the liquor store. Whatever. The kids are out of school or back from college and grandpa isn’t getting any younger, so family vacations are all the rage…if you can afford the gas to get there.
Gas is more expensive than ever. How expensive is it? Once again, CNN came through with the answer. They did a survey to find out how expensive gas was across the nation and found that it’s over two dollars just about everywhere. Thanks, CNN. Thank you for that newsflash. A survey about gas prices is like considering an STD scan as a college final (bad simile #1).
“I’d say these cheaper gas stations are diluting the gas with slushee, but slushees are more expensive than gas.”
I didn’t have to conduct a “survey.” I just went and filled my car up. It cost me $25 to fill up my shitty Pontiac Grand M (the “A” fell off). I paid $2.09 a gallon, which is about the most I have ever paid for anything per unit including sex. Personally, I don’t give a fuck what the rest of the nation pays anyway. Call me selfish, but I worry about me. We pay more? That fucking sucks, but what are you going to do? If we pay less, woohoo, fuck the rest of the nation! If Texans are only paying $1.79 a gallon I’m not driving down there to pay 30 cents less. If the gas station on the way home from work is $2.06, I’m going to pay $2.06. And no, I don’t care that NY, LA and Chicago are much more expensive. You chose to live there, fuck you, deal with it. Wear that like a badge of pride and brag about it like you do everything else:
“I live in Chicago/NY/LA, I pay more for everything. It cost me $12 for a latte this morning and the daily paper costs $2.75. I almost got shot on my way to work and everyone here hates each other. I just love the energy and adventure here.”
Where was I? Oh yeah…gas prices.
Desperate to serve a purpose besides televising Bike Day at neighborhood elementary schools, the local news is trying to help. They announce, every day, where the cheapest gas is. Somehow, there’s always a station or two that is able to sell their gas for just a little bit cheaper. So now, if you want to wait in line for an hour and a half, you can pay 3 cents less per gallon. No one’s asking WHY they can sell their gas for cheaper than anyone else. They’re just lining up to save 65 cents a tank (unless you have an SUV, then you save $15,000 a tank). I’d say the cheaper gas stations are diluting the gas with slushee, but slushees are more expensive than gas.
Think about it.
A 32oz slushee is usually 99 cents. A gallon is 128oz. 128 divided by 32 is 4. Four dollars a gallon for slushee. Where’s the strategic slushee reserves? What happens when we run out? Is there a stockpile somewhere? As the most wasteful nation in the world, we’re sucking the planet dry. We need to put together a strategy that makes us less dependent on foreign sources of slushee.
Think about the children. Do we want them to grow up in a world with no slushees? Scientists are already looking into alternate sources of slushee. Currently they are testing red white and blue rocket popsicles in the in the blender, but they’re still “a long way from mass production,” according to Chief Scientist Mark Betton of the Alternate Ice Treat Institute (pronounced ahh-eye-tee-eye), who also added that “the possibility of an ice, flavor and some sort of grinder/mixer hybrid is foreseeable within our lifetimes.”
Some would disagree. The slushee interests have been lobbying Congress saying that these alternate sources are impractical and not as cool.
Joe Sidke of Slushee Makers Inc said, “Who carries around a blender?” He points out that the melting that occurs during blending makes the product over all inferior. “You don’t want your kids to show up with blended popsicle. They’ll get laughed at. Do you hate your children?”
Members of Congress aren’t convinced either way yet. Even John McCain admits, “It’s clear that something has to be done. Right now we’re trying to get our hands on one of the old Snoopy Sno-Cone machines to see if they can be adapted to fit our needs.” Yes, I know, the president has made it clear that we are not tapping our strategic reserves at this point, but we’ll figure something out, right?
A grassroots effort is also in the planning stages. Tema Elbert of the Citizens Against Big Money Slushee recently made a statement urging citizens to conserve consumption of all icy treats. According to her, “They last a lot longer if you eat them slowly.” I can't argue with that.
A recent poll whether this potential shortage would affect the way that people consume slushees was split almost down the middle, with 48% of the people saying they would
“probably sip them a little slower, but not a lot slower.”
What have we learned? Getting quotes right is easy when you make them up. Filling a tank of gas is hard when you have a craving for slushees.