Chaos

Did anybody else have any trouble at the gas pumps today? First of all, gas had jumped over forty cents a gallon since last night. I had to have gas to get to work, so I stopped at my regular gas station just as usual. But when I pulled in it was CRAZY!!! Apparently this was one of the only places that hadn't raised their prices (yet), so people were lined up trying to buy cheap (comparatively speaking) gas. Lines were long, people were angry. I got caught up in a line before I even realized what was going on. Because seriously....I would have preferred to go someplace else and pay that extra forty cents a gallon. But I couldn't even back up or turn around to leave. I waited over 2o minutes to pull up to a pump. At some point this little old lady came charging in, squeezing her oversized sedan past all these cars, and then wedged herself right in to cut in line at a pump right in front of the woman who was in front of me. That woman immediately jumped out of her car and started some whole screaming argument right in front of my car. She was yelling at the old lady. I was horrified. But honestly, even though I normally try to have patience with older folks, and even though this woman looked like Grandma Moses on a bad day, she had to have known that she was breaking into a long line. Didn't she? Wouldn't all those dozens of cars sitting around the pumps have clued her in? I don't know. I just know it was crazy, and I was a little bit afraid. It felt like I had just wandered into a war zone or something.

I'm not sure I understand what the hell is going on, anyway. I mean, technically as of 8am today the storm hadn't even hit yet. Why would gas prices go up before anybody even really knows what is going to happen? Also...by lunchtime today alot of places had raised their prices another twenty cents or so. Gas that was $3.57 a gallon yesterday is now somewhere in the neighborhood of $4.25. Who knows how much it will be tomorrow.....its scary.