the facebook fuel fiasco of 2017

all is quiet across the street now…

…but when i got here a little over ninety minutes ago it was anything but.

here is, to the best of my knowledge, pulling from sources from (no bullshit) a lobbyist for the oil and gas industry what happened: hurricane harvey pummeled the coast, hitting a couple refineries worse than they could take. this caused a day or two shutdown of said refineries, one of which had a pipeline that fed most of the fuel to the dfw metroplex and north texas, necessitating gas get there old school and be driven up in trucks.

but here’s the problem – thanks to facebook we got to see the telephone game we played as kids on a grand scale. remember that? where somebody would whisper in somebody’s ear, then they would whisper what they heard, and so on, and the message would change by the end of the circle? well, “a slight hiccup in metroplex gasoline supply” turned into, via facebook, a state-wide petrol panic that resulted in most gas pumps yesterday and today looking like this:

but there wasn’t actually any shortage…at least not at first. but shithouse panic across most cities actually CAUSED one. there’s plenty of gas in reserves, but the problem is the second a station refuels everybody rushes it. the gulf station across the street from the shop got a truck, loaded only with low grade (so it does me no good, but i’m okay on gas thanks to a station near my house i’m pretty sure has cartel ties) at 9am. before 11:30, thanks to the perpetual petrol panic (yes, there will be lots of alliteration today) they were re-bagging their pumps, which caused me to re-post a meme i made yesterday inspired by vintage stüssy ad:

and hopefully this is all a distant memory by wednesday, when my current tank should run dry…

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