I learned a little something about myself today. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I apparently do have a limit to the amount I'm willing to spend for wildly overpriced goods. Maybe that means there's a faint glimmer of fiscal responsibility deep within me, after all. More likely, I'm just getting pennypinchy in my crotchety old age.


(And you young whippersnappers better git offa my lawn!)


At any rate, I've never spent much time worrying about cash. For much of my adult life, I was too poor to consider buying anything extravagant. Or anything non-extravagant, for that matter. Fretting about making more money would have been like worrying about growing a set of boobs on my back -- it wasn't going to happen, I wouldn't know how to react if it did happen, and I'd be clueless about how to make the situation work for me.


(Hint: Two sets of mirrors and a velvet-covered back scratcher.


I've given this 'boobs on the back' thing way too much thought.)


Happily, my time spent huddling over bowls of Ramen noodles in a studio apartment has endowed me with plain, simple tastes. Some might even say 'cheap'. So long as the mortgage is paid, the television works, and there's beer in the fridge, I'm good. Sure, these days it has to be good beer -- I'm not still in my Ramen noodle phase, after all -- but I don't generally go in for the extravagant things in life.


On the other hand, when I need something -- or can convince my wife that I'll be mopey and pouty-faced without it -- then I'm not afraid to put some money down. The system has worked well for me over the years -- spend a few months living on the cheap, then splurge on a cell phone or underwear or dog food or something, and go back to 'save mode' for a while. That's plenty enough shopping for me; I don't much enjoy the buying process in the first place. If I leave a 7-11 with a pack of gum and a Slushee, I consider that a 'spree'.


So, generally speaking, I don't pay too much attention to prices, because I'm not actually buying things. One of my few regular purchases, though, is gasoline. I need the car to get to work, so I can make the money to pay the car and insurance payments, so I can have the car to get to work, so I can make the money to... meh. Looks like my rat race is being run on a very circular sort of track. I hope I'm due for a pit stop soon.


But back to the gas station.


Today, I pulled my thirsty Nissan up to the pump, swiped my card, and began fueling. I go to this station a lot; it's on my way to work, and while the prices aren't the absolute best in town, they don't seem to be gouging particularly hard, either. Today, a hit of regular unleaded could be had for $3.03. I nozzled up and let 'er rip.


A few gallons in, I came out of my daydream and noticed the numbers rolling over. Twenty-five bucks and counting. Hrm. Boy, I remember the day when a whole tank was less than twe- I thought I told you whippersnappers to git offa my lawn!


Soon after, the pump pinged thirty dollars. The car kept on chugging.


At forty clams, I frowned. I've paid forty bucks for a tank of gas before -- but I haven't liked it. I'm no pricewatcher, but somehow shelling over two Jacksons just to tootle back and forth to the office for a few days feels wrong. Dead wrong. And still the pump kept pumping.


Forty-two dollars. Still going.


Forty-five dollars. How much gas does this car fricking hold, anyway? I glanced down to see whether I was accidentally filling the back seat with octane. I wasn't.


Forty-six dollars. Surely that's enough. Nope.


Forty-seven dollars. Can you hear me now?


Forty-eight dollars. Forty-eight fifty. Forty-nine dollars. And no sign of stopping. I don't like where this is headed.


I watched the cents place swoosh past -- ten, twenty, thirty, and more. There was no hint of a cutoff, no indication my poor car was near sated. At forty-nine dollars and eighty-something cents, I let off the trigger and cut the juice. The tally stood at forty-nine ninety-nine. Teetering, tantalizingly close, to my very first fifty-dollar tank of gas.


To me, the fifty-dollar tank of gas has become a symbol. A message that things have finally gone too far, that somehow this whole 'industrial revolution' and supersized consumerized economy might not be working out the way we'd planned. Fifty dollars for a car's worth of fuel is tough to swallow. Unless that vehicle of yours is packing extra gallons away in a hollow axle or a second tank, dropping half a hundred at your local Shell shouldn't even be a concern.


Yet there I stood, one thin penny away from the magical five-oh. Oh, what troubling times are these when high-octane fossil fuels cost more per ounce than street-quality crank. Is no method of mass pollution sacred any more?


I stopped to ponder why the fifty-dollar tank of gas matters to me so much, when I've blithely ignored other potential economic doomsday signs. The two-dollar vending machine soda, which incenses several of my friends, doesn't much bother me. Likewise, the sixty-dollar baseball ticket -- if I can afford it once or twice a year, great. If not... there's always TV to watch it on. And the twelve-dollar burrito -- which still causes a single angry tear to run down my friend's cheek, any time we mention it -- is just bueno in my book, assuming I'm extra-hungry and have just cashed my paycheck.


So why the gas thing? I have no idea. All I know is that I couldn't physically bring myself to nuedge the trigger any further on the gas pump today. Ignoring the sexy allure of that nice round five-oh-dot-oh-oh on the display, I left the tab at $49.99, replaced the cap, and drove away. I found my limit. Fifty dollars to gas up is simply not going to fly.


Of course, now I dread what'll happen in a few years, when prices have skyrocketed and we're all jacking rocket fuel from the pumps into our hoverbikes. We may hit the 'fifty-dollar tank of gas' in the first half-gallon. And those hoverbikes have horrible city MPG, so you just know it's going to cost a fortune.


Me, I long for the good old days of a few years ago, in that happy place between the oil embargoes of the '80s and the out-of-kilter supply and demand wonkiness of today. Boy, in the mid-nineties, you could take fifty bucks to the pump and gas up three cars, with change left over to fill the lawnmower tank. Those sure were the days.


Now for the last time, get that goldurned hoverbike the hell offa my lawn! You'll crease the astroturf with that thing, ya whippersnapper. Sheesh.

Can anybody tell me exactly when gas station owners turned into slimy, money-grubbing weasels? Anyone able to pinpoint that one for me?


I just noticed it this week, but I'm pretty sure it's been going on for a while. Here's how I found out:


I needed gas yesterday, on my way to work. I usually go to a filling station near my house, but was already near the office when I noticed that old 'Silver Betty' was almost dry.


(Yes, I named the car. Yes, I call her Silver Betty. No, I don't know what's wrong with me.


Moving on.)


Anyway, the stations near the house are full-serve affairs -- most of the stations in Massachusetts are, for reasons that aren't really clear to me.


(After all, it's not like New Englanders are known for 'friendly service with a smile'. So why insist on foisting often-surly gas attendants on us at every possible turn? It's a mystery.)


Here's the thing -- I ended up hitting a gas station close to the office, and said station happened to be a self-serve jobbie. So I got out to pump my gas, with work and lunch and a dozen other things on my mind. To the pump I went, distracted and absent-minded, dreaming my dreamy little dreams. I swiped my card, and turned a small sliver of my attention to the buttons on the pump. There was a single button and a nozzle on the left, and four buttons and another nozzle on the right. Pretty much the standard gas pump configuration these days.


Well, I knew to avoid the single button -- that's always either diesel fuel or the extra-expensive, diamond-filtered, stored in gold-lined tanks, uber-octane six-dolla-a-gallon juice. That left the other four buttons, representing various octane grades and exorbitant prices. Fine.


So, I punched the first -- meaning left-most -- button, looking for 'regular' gas. In less expensive times, I might go a grade or two higher, but I'm not sure it's really necessary, frankly. Betty doesn't knock, Betty doesn't ping, and she seems quite happy with regular-octane food. Plus, the 'regular' stuff they put out now is pretty pure -- it's not like the seventies, when filling up with regular meant a half-tank full of butane, methane, propane (and propane accessories), and a smattering of beaver spit. We've moved past that now. There's almost no beaver spit in regular gasoline at all.


But imagine my surprise and chagrined frowny-facing when I took a closer look and realized that by pressing the 'first' button -- historically, the lowest-octane choice -- I'd actually selected the highest octane, most expensive, sock-it-to-ya-wallet ultra-premium rocket-grade petrol. I'd been duped! Shammed! Shenaniganized!


Bitches!


Now, sure, if I'd paid a bit more attention, I wouldn't have been in that mess. And, I wouldn't have paid nearly sixty bucks for a tank of gas. I'd have still paid forty or so, but hey -- gas prices are gas prices. I don't begrudge the station managers the current going rate per gallon -- that's just part of the game. But to reverse the buttons, after years of going low-to-high octane, so creatures of habit like me (read: ADD-afflicted flighty douchebags) accidentally pick the wrong grade of gas? Now, that's just fucking mean.


Anyway, I just thought you should know. They got me, but maybe it's not too late for you. So take a close look at the pump the next time you buy gas, people. As soon as a few people wise up to their current scam, I fully expect these bastards to randomize the buttons altogether. They'll probably switch 'em up from day to day, or change octane ratings into letters to confound us, just to screw with our heads. And our wallets. Slimy gas bastards, anyway. I'd like to stick a nozzle in their tank and pump. Bah.