Adele Ferguson - Will higher prices lead to an erosion of service

IT’S BAD ENOUGH that a new survey says the average price of regular gasoline in the United States has jumped 33 cents per gallon in the last two weeks.

You’d think that alone would make people who sell it appreciate their customers who might otherwise be contemplating trying out an electric car. I’m sure some do. But let me give you two recent examples where that was not the case.

I won’t name the stations. The ones I am speaking of may be singular in their attitudes and I don’t want to knock all of their brand.

Many stations have gone to requiring that you put some money down before getting your gas because of an increasing number of drivers who skip out without paying. It started to get worse during the last ballooning of gas prices and is picking up again. I’ve always had gas cards and at this particular station I normally drive up to a pump, go in the station, lay down my card and say I’m out there at such and such a pump. I go out and they turn the gas on.

This time I drove up to a pump, went in the store that accompanies the station. There were two girls in the store directly behind the counter. One was on the telephone, the other was standing next to her. Both looked right at me when I came in.

I DROPPED my card on the counter, said I was at the middle pump which they could see through the window, of course. When I returned to my car nothing happened. They didn’t turn the gas on. I yelled at them to turn the gas on. This is out in the country so it’s not disturbing a neighborhood.

Nothing. I yelled again. Nothing. A man walked by, I asked him if he would please tell the girls to turn on the gas. He ignored me and walked off. Another man walked by and I asked him the same. There was some yelling from the store but after some minutes went by they turned on the gas. I got $28 worth.

When I went in to retrieve my card, the girls said I was supposed to stay and be acknowledged before they could turn the gas on. I said what do you mean acknowledge? You’ve got my card, it’s obvious I’m not going to leave by driving off without paying. But we don’t know if it’s your card, they said. I’m the only car out there, I said, who else could it belong to? You saw me put it down. Well, I was on the telephone talking to another customer, said a girl. So what? I said, can’t you do two things at once? You’ve got two eyes. Both of them saw me leave the card.

You threw it down! said the other girl. I dropped it, I said, but even if you considered it thrown down so what? You got the card. I’m obviously going to pay.

YOU HAVE TO WAIT your turn and we were both waiting on other customers, said one girl. You have to be acknowledged and we have to look at your card before it’s your turn. You mean to tell me, I said, that I have to be acknowledged when you have my card? I’m going to write the company, I said.

Well, there is the company, said the girls, pointing to a man who had come up to the counter and listened to what was going on. He stepped forward. “I heard it all,” he said. “The customer is right.” He apologized for the girls’ behavior. One girl picked up the card and snapped, “Is this debit or credit? “It’s credit,” snapped the man. I thanked him

A friend of mine had a similar experience recently when she put $40 in the pump to pay for the gas she needed but when she went in the store for her change, the man there said he couldn’t see any $40 had been paid. But that’s another story.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)