For the better part of the week, Nashville has been the victim of a gas drought. The city is almost completely void of fuel, and I am still not entirely sure why.
I first heard rumblings of a gas shortage on my birthday, 13 September. My mother called to say that Huntsville was out of fuel, and it was spreading to Nashville. Oddly enough, when I ventured out to Elm Hill Pike later that day, the two stations in the area had bags over the pumps. I made the assumption that my mom was right and the city had just been hit. However, during the next few days I saw gas stations running per usual, and figured we'd just had a delay in shipments due to the hurricanes.
That Friday, though, I saw the insanity firsthand. I knew there were stations without gas, so I drove around my area, trying to find a station with gas. Out of about ten, one had gas, one ran out as I pulled up, and a third had bags over the pumps, but lines out onto the road because a tanker was on site, presumably delivering fuel.
I realized that I hadn't seen any coverage of our gas issues on any national news outlet, or corresponding website. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, cnn.com posted an article that talked about Music City's lack of fuel. The first sentence read: "Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy: An estimated three-fourths of gas stations in the Nashville, Tennessee, area ran dry Friday, victim of an apparent rumor that the city was running out of gas."
It is entirely possible that this town did this to ourselves. At the pumps yesterday, I watched a man fill up his pick-up truck (one of those massive models) and then fill a gas tank that he put in the back of the truck. This was not a 5-gallon tank that might be used to fill a lawn-mower; instead, this man was preparing for the second-wave of Y2K. While people are lined up a mile-deep and an hour long, he has the audacity to hoard such a large supply of fuel. That was a disgusting display of selfishness. My taunts and snickers obviously did nothing to deter him.
On the other hand, Atlanta is now facing gas shortages. That was posted on cnn.com today. However, no one dare accuse The ATL residents of bringing this on themselves. Their depleted supply was chalked up to the hurricanes, not to "self-fulfilling prophec[ies]" or likened to "Southerners rushing out to stock up on bread and milk when they hear it might snow."
While I saw the panic firsthand, I also take offense at being labeled like this. I didn't wait in line to push my 3/4 to F. I have no designs to bring a gas can to the Wal-Mart down the road. I didn't even believe the initial hype/hysteria/rumors of the shortage. Instead, I went about my normal routine. Certainly, many thousands behaved like me. And certainly, many thousands more displayed the listed behaviours. Otherwise, we wouldn't be in this mess.
To say we did it to ourselves, I take offense. You did this to yourselves. I, and many more like me, merely live here. Like the idiot that yells out an answer in a game of bar trivia, you ruined it for the rest of us.
Take your fannypack and go home.
22 September 2008
Runnin' on Empty
For the better part of the week, Nashville has been the victim of a gas drought. The city is almost completely void of fuel, and I am still not entirely sure why.
I first heard rumblings of a gas shortage on my birthday, 13 September. My mother called to say that Huntsville was out of fuel, and it was spreading to Nashville. Oddly enough, when I ventured out to Elm Hill Pike later that day, the two stations in the area had bags over the pumps. I made the assumption that my mom was right and the city had just been hit. However, during the next few days I saw gas stations running per usual, and figured we'd just had a delay in shipments due to the hurricanes.
That Friday, though, I saw the insanity firsthand. I knew there were stations without gas, so I drove around my area, trying to find a station with gas. Out of about ten, one had gas, one ran out as I pulled up, and a third had bags over the pumps, but lines out onto the road because a tanker was on site, presumably delivering fuel.
I realized that I hadn't seen any coverage of our gas issues on any national news outlet, or corresponding website. Finally, on Saturday afternoon, cnn.com posted an article that talked about Music City's lack of fuel. The first sentence read: "Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy: An estimated three-fourths of gas stations in the Nashville, Tennessee, area ran dry Friday, victim of an apparent rumor that the city was running out of gas."
It is entirely possible that this town did this to ourselves. At the pumps yesterday, I watched a man fill up his pick-up truck (one of those massive models) and then fill a gas tank that he put in the back of the truck. This was not a 5-gallon tank that might be used to fill a lawn-mower; instead, this man was preparing for the second-wave of Y2K. While people are lined up a mile-deep and an hour long, he has the audacity to hoard such a large supply of fuel. That was a disgusting display of selfishness. My taunts and snickers obviously did nothing to deter him.
On the other hand, Atlanta is now facing gas shortages. That was posted on cnn.com today. However, no one dare accuse The ATL residents of bringing this on themselves. Their depleted supply was chalked up to the hurricanes, not to "self-fulfilling prophec[ies]" or likened to "Southerners rushing out to stock up on bread and milk when they hear it might snow."
While I saw the panic firsthand, I also take offense at being labeled like this. I didn't wait in line to push my 3/4 to F. I have no designs to bring a gas can to the Wal-Mart down the road. I didn't even believe the initial hype/hysteria/rumors of the shortage. Instead, I went about my normal routine. Certainly, many thousands behaved like me. And certainly, many thousands more displayed the listed behaviours. Otherwise, we wouldn't be in this mess.
To say we did it to ourselves, I take offense. You did this to yourselves. I, and many more like me, merely live here. Like the idiot that yells out an answer in a game of bar trivia, you ruined it for the rest of us.
Take your fannypack and go home.
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