“You work at Oil & Gas Journal-don’t you?”
“Who wants to know?”
“I’m your neighbor, for crying out loud.”
“Sorry. I’m getting paranoid. People hear I write about the oil business, blame me for gasoline prices. Some get ugly about it.”
“But you do work at Oil & Gas Journal?”
“Far as I know, I still do.”
“Then answer me this: How come I bought gasoline in Marlin yesterday for 20¢/gal less than I paid 2 days before at the corner of Westheimer and the West Loop?”
“That’s easy-”
“I mean, Marlin’s out in the boonies, and gasoline there’s usually a nickel or so more than in Houston, even by the Galleria.”
“I can explain-”
“Crude price is still up, I know. Those Arabs are really sticking it to us.”
“Actually, they’re producing all-“
“But that doesn’t explain why gasoline is cheaper in Marlin, of all places, where there’s only a handful of gas stations so the oil companies can set the price wherever they want to.”
“The oil companies don’t really-”
“I filled up fast as I could, of course. Twenty cents cheaper, for crying out loud.”
“You must have saved a whole three bucks.”
“Three-fifty. Felt good.”
“Probably sent shudders through ExxonMobil.”
“Shell. But they’re all the same. Polluters, all of them. Making those big profits while we poor consumers are hurting.”
“What else did you buy at the Shell station?”
“Pack of cigarettes. Bottled water. Couple of Lotto tickets. So why is it gasoline’s so much cheaper in the boonies?”
“They don’t have to sell reformulated gasoline out there.”
“How’s that?”
“Reformulated gasoline. Cuts air pollution. Costs more to make.”
“All right, smart guy. If this recombobulated gasoline is more expensive than the normal kind, and the normal kind is what they sell in Marlin, how come gas is usually pricier out that way?”
“You had the answer earlier: not as much competition.”
“So there’s more competition out there now?”
“Nope. More cost than normal here in Houston. Reformulated gasoline’s more expensive than it used to be.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s kind of complicated. Last year Congress did some things and didn’t do some other things, so this year refiners have to take one additive out of reformulated gasoline and replace it in a hurry with another. For the time being, the new stuff’s hard to get, so the price of the gasoline it goes into is high.”
“What stuff? Liquid gold?”
“Almost. Ethanol made out of corn.”
“I heard about that. We grow our own gasoline, show the Arabs a thing or two. Pretty cool.”
“If you think burning food for fuel makes sense.”
“You don’t?”
“Ethanol has its uses. But it costs a lot to make and has less energy than gasoline.”
“Who cares?”
“Nobody, I guess. Anyway, this year there’s not enough ethanol to go around, so places like Houston and Dallas that need to rush it into reformulated gasoline are paying a lot more than-”
“-Places like Marlin that don’t use recombobulated gasoline.”
“You catch on fast.”
“So tell me, how do the oil companies decide what the price is going to be? A conference call with all the big shots or what?”
“I take back what I just said.”
“I mean, somebody’s got to be setting the price. All this rigamarole about ethanol and recombobulated gasoline-just a bunch of excuses, if you ask me.”
“What you call excuses some people see as reasons.”
“And don’t tell me they didn’t gouge us after those hurricanes last year.”
“They didn’t gouge us after the hurricanes.”
“For crying out loud, gas jumped up to three bucks a gallon! That’s gouging!”
“The storms shut down a lot of production in the gulf plus all those refineries. Supply goes way down; price goes up.”
“But three bucks!”
“How much do you think the price should have gone up?”
“Let me see...a quarter, tops. That’d be fair.”
“Gasoline would have run out with so much supply gone and the price that low.”
“Says you. Okay. Maybe I’d let the price go up thirty, thirty-five cents-except for the big companies.”
“You should run for Congress.”
“Too many politicians up there. Hey, I got to run. The missus and I are buying a new set of jet-skis tonight. Nice talking to you.”
Sigh.