People are going crazy

Every single gas station in Searcy has had major lines of people waiting to fuel up in order to beat the higher gas prices that are being predicted because of Hurricane Ike. Several of the stations close to us had run out of all but the premium grade as of 1500 this afternoon. Duane told us that a couple of people had called him to report that Conway and Pine Bluff had stations charging $5+ a gallon. The attorney general has had to issue a warning about price gouging and Gov. Beebe has declared a state of emergency to prevent it. We were waiting in line to top off at Harp's and had a woman almost run us over when the guy in front of us pulled forward and she decided she was going to cut line. Looked straight at us and zoomed right in. I don't think she expected anybody to do anything but James got out, knocked on her window and very politely told her that there was a line that she had just cut in front of and that she needed to go to the back of. She apologized, claimed she didn't see us or the other people waiting and backed out to line up like a civilized person.

We did make a stop at a local parts store to buy a locking gas cap. Had been meaning to for several months anyway but hadn't gotten around to it until now. Somebody at Bald Knob had tried to steal gas out of our pickup 3 weeks ago but we'd been leaving it right above empty while parking there so they didn't get anything. It freaked me out though when I got in and started it up and got the check engine icon. Didn't even think to check the gas cap until I got home, ran the diagnostics, and found the code on the internet. Sure enough, they hadn't tightened the cap down after they figured out that the tank wasn't full. I was just relieved there wasn't anything major wrong!!

It looks like the gas stations have lowered their prices back down after jacking them up because of the a.g. warning.