I Have Gas

I am confused by the whole gasoline industry. Always have been but even more so today.

How can Nashville be out of gas while 650 miles to the west in Oklahoma City it is $3.19 per gallon which is the lowest price we have had in six months? How does that work? Is I-40 blocked? How did a whole city run out of gas? Was no one watching the little red light on the gauge? My wife starts reminding me to pull over well before that thing comes on.

Also on this subject, why do competitors have such comparable gas prices? The two stations down the street from me are exactly two cents different every time I drive by. Do they stand outside with the plastic numbers and wait to see which one flinches first? Or more likely, Shell spends millions of dollars every year forecasting world wide oil production, monitoring distribution channels, calculating cost of sales, predicting outside influences, etc. to establish their price while 7-Eleven tells their guys to watch the sign across the street and subtract two cents?

How can a station have the same price as the competition on the same corner but the same company has another station a couple of miles away is ten cents higher? Does it cost that much to drive those big trucks? If so, wouldn’t the prices on the highway be cheaper then the ones they have to come all the way into the city to stock up?

Now you can see why I am so confused. I am going back to work.