Panic at the Pumps

Ike blew through Texas and then wet us here in Missouri with 5.5 inches of rain in just a couple of hours. Right before Ike arrived, neighbor Shelley stops by on her way in and tells me, There isn't any gas left in town. I said, say what? She said, all the gas stations have sold out their gasoline; I just come from there.

Thinking of the 24 pumps at the QuikTrip and 12 at the Shell, I expressed disbelief.

You know what it is, Shelley said, people out here have all these trucks with double tanks and SUVs and whatnot, and everybody heard gas was going to $5 a gallon cuz of Ike hittin' the refineries. I said, People acting crazy. No need to panic like that. Everybody is listening to too much TV.

So then it rained buckets. My phone and electricity went out. Finally I get to turn on the TV and the whole world had gone irrational. The worst local flash-flooding wasn't here but in the big city, where it never floods. Two people drowned trying to save their cars and others are scraping mud out of their restaurants & that. Then national news says a huge Wall-Street financial concern employing all sorts of financiers & accountants has gone bankrupt. And then a certain President comes on TV and says to stay calm and sit tight because everything will be fine. Then I saw commercials for and against Obama and McCain, with both of them acting crazy, and showing their faces in profile and talkin' down to us like we were irrational or at least morons, and I wondered if this U.S.A. is turning into a Third World country or what.