Whenever I go to a gas station, I sometimes glance around at the pumps around me to see what the previous customer paid for their fuel. Most of the time, it’s so I can see how many people paid out in nice perfectly round even numbers like $20, sometimes $10, and even the occasional $5. Once I saw one pump actually sitting at like $165, which meant that someone with a Hummer or a Land Rover must have filled up all 40+ gallons of their tank with high-octane at the same cost of what a Sega Genesis, an extra controller and Ecco the Dolphin cost me when I was in the sixth grade.
Twenty bucks I can understand, and to some degree I get ten dollars, if they’re like a teenager or someone who probably still either doesn’t have enough disposable money on hand, or just can’t afford more. Anything less than $10, and I’m often curious to how pointless it kind of is to even roll into the gas station in the first place, because even if they had pretty fuel economic vehicles, they’re guaranteed to be back in a day or two, tops. Way, way less if they had like a Ford Explorer or any kind of six-plus cylinder vehicle. Obviously, I don’t know these peoples’ financial situations, and such implications mean they can’t be too well off, but I’ve seen my share of people in some pretty luxurious cars also doing the whole “pay for less than $10 worth of gas” thing before as well.
