May 19, 2004 :: Buy gas May 18th

OK, you all can stop emailing me the populist exhortation about how I shouldn't buy gas today. Besides the fact that this little ditty has been circulating the internet for a good decade and hasn't had anywhere close to the desired effect YET, I've received a good 20 copies this year. I'm not signing on or forwarding it, either, because it's stupid.

I know, I know, for every email saying "Don't buy gas May 19th!" there's another saying "That email is stupid". But this is my sandbox, so I'mma rant if I want to.

A show of hands: for those of you who drive on a regular basis, how many times a month do you buy gas? I'd guess between 2 to 8 times a month. Let's say average is 6 as a conservatively high estimate. Out of the 30 days in the month, 6 of them you're at the gas station. So there's an 80% chance you wouldn't have been buying gas today anyway. But let's say today was just lining up to be your gas day. You've got a few options: (A) Be conscientious and exercise forethought by filling up the day before, (B) End up buying gas today anyway because you've got to get to work regardless and you forgot about the stupid buycott, (C) Decide principle trumps practical and run out of gas on the beltway because you wouldn't fill up. Power to the people! OK, in each of these cases, you're still buying the same gas, just on a different day. At the end of the month, you still drove the same amount of miles and bought the same amount of gas. Do you think Exxon/Mobil/BP/Amoco/Arco/etc cares when you buy your gas, as long as you still buy it? If May 19th turned up regularly as a day that gas didn't sell, they'd simply close gas stations on that day, and reopen the next day. You are not effecting any significant impact on the oil companies, gas prices, or the economy. Those 10,000 new Hyundai owners in China are still filling up, and that has a lot more to do with how much you're paying than what day you choose to fill up.

One more note, since it's only reasonable to make a better suggestion when a problem is identified: You really want to make an impact on the oil companies? Try taking public transit one day a month. If everybody did that instead, then they'd actually avoid using that day's worth of gas in the first place, and that would make a much bigger difference to the oil companies' bottom lines. Think about it.

posted by Rainmayun at 10:37 AM -