Why it really cost $100 to partially fill your gas tank.

I’ve written about high gas prices in the past, and who seems to take the blame for them. It’s usually the person you hate the most, as they become a scapegoat for your personal hate. Never mind that oil is a commodity, and gasoline stations in the United States are private companies that charge whatever they want to gouge drivers.

And thus appeared this recent tweet by a local Congressional candidate who hopes to receive the nomination once again.

Okay, normally I would link this tweet to my blog, but I’ve discovered that by linking the tweet, it actually increases that tweeter’s traffic. Plus, if there’s an issue with the tweet, the tweeter can remove it, leaving me with a broken link. Thus, a nice pretty screenshot instead.

At first blush, we can determine that our prickly person is furious that gasoline prices are so high that she has to invest $100 and can’t fill her tank up. But let’s look into this, shall we?

The pump says that $100 was dispensed, providing 20.412 gallons of gasoline. Here’s a clearer shot of that photo.

Now for a little math. What does $100 divided by 20.412 equal, kids?

The answer is $4.899. Or, in gasoline parlance, $4.89 and 9/10 of a cent.

And of the available gasoline prices in the photo, what is the only one that matches $4.89?

Yep. The premium non-ethanol blend. Now I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing in my car’s operations manual that says I need to put high-test fuel in my car when regular gasoline will suffice. So what we have here is someone who picked the most expensive gasoline at the pump, pumped as much as she could get of that expensive blend for $100, then photographed that she could only fill HER GAS GUZZLING TRUCK with 3/4 of a tank, and then bitch about gas prices to … Paul Tonko??

Again, I need to check this out, but last I heard, Paul Tonko wasn’t the Chairman of Sunoco. And if he is supporting our attempts to cut down on fossil fuels and to find cleaner, more productive sources of energy – last I checked, wind, rivers and sunshine didn’t charge extra for blowing, flowing and glowing – then weaning us off fossil fuels makes us less reliant on countries and corporations that would charge us to use such commodities.

But what we have here is a photo of political theater. It’s supposed to show that gas prices are too high for the common man to get to work and earn his daily bread; but in reality, that photo shows someone who kvetches over the most expensive items while claiming to be unjustly marginalized.

Trust me, I love my Chevrolet, but if I could find a Chevrolet Volt hybrid car right now, I’d jump on it like it was a pile of raked autumn leaves.

We can certainly do better than this. And if someone needs to do this kind of political theater to make their point …

Then let’s face it. That point was missed a long time ago.