Appearance Is Everything

Friday, September 30, 2011

We had a bit of a gasoline fuel shortage here a few weeks ago. I knew my friend’s gas tank was near-empty when we drove her home the previous night, so when she picked me up for supper I told her that the papers had been front-paging about local gas stations running dry, and that we should fill up before we supped.

We did, but not without her pointing out that there sure didn’t seem to be a shortage at the first gas station we came to, and furthermore, that the prices was the lowest it had been for a month.

It was still a bit early for supper, so we drove down Dundas Street to a furniture store, passing several gas stations on the way.

And on the way we passed FOUR gas stations devoid of cars.

A gas station in Toronto without a single car is most surely a sign of a gas station without gas.

Yet on my return home it struck me that had I still been looking for gas, I’d have driven past the vacant stations without bothering to see if, indeed, they did have gas and, co-incidentally, happened to have NO customers at that instant.

I took the vacant station to mean “No Gas”.

So if I ever find myself running a gas station during a gas shortage, First thing I’ll do is park my own car at one of the pumps, the pump most visible to approaching traffic.

Meanwhile, as broke as I am, I’ll continue to wear a suit-and-tie to meetings downtown ...

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