Day 41, In Which the Author Snaps Just A Smidge

I would love to use today’s post to detail the delightfully gruff port town of Astoria, or my visit to the point where Lewis and Clark met the Pacific, or my disappointment with Portland. I had a really great bit planned where I was going to write in an early nineteenth century style. Alas, fair readers, you will never see such writing, because my anger has been stoked. Oregon has a draconian law that I once knew, then forgot a few years back. It was not until I arrived at the gas station and saw a throng of mustachioed attendants that I remembered: in Oregon, you are not allowed to pump your own gas. 

I find this insulting to my dignity as a human being. Imagine the sheer myopia required to think that pumping gas, of all the facets of driving, is the dangerous part. We, as motorists, regularly drive at life-snuffing speeds on poorly maintained roads, distracted by garish advertisements and audio stimuli, eating and drinking as we please, in cars with active safety recalls and substandard maintenance. This is all legal. The world is fine with people putting themselves and others in extreme, mortal danger on the roads. This is accepted as the price we must pay to drive. But Lord have mercy on my soul if I pump gas into my immobile car. I guess I must have missed all the craters that came from people blowing themselves up at self-serve kiosks. 

Let’s break down Oregon’s reasoning for keeping this law on the books. Number one: safety. Again, once I get home, I will keep my eyes peeled for the folks unwittingly dousing themselves in gas and promptly self-immolating. Number two: the state is afraid that older people would be confused. Look. All due respect to our elderly contingent here on the blog—lovely people, all—but if you cannot figure out how to use the gas kiosk, you should not be driving. This is, in fact, an excellent barometer of determining who still has the cognitive faculty to drive. Good Lord.

Third and final reason: full-service gas stations provide jobs. My response here is twofold. The first half is that, in an ideal society, automation is a good thing. It keeps people from dithering about in mind-numbing jobs (and, to be clear, these guys at the pumps were not enjoying their work), and allows us to pursue more high-minded things like art, travel, spiritual discovery, etc. I do not have the space in this post to explore why this is not the case in our society, why we cling to labor as a definition of self, and why we prop up a capitalist oligarchy Weekend at Bernie’s—style. Instead, I will lean upon my second argument, which is that letting me use the gas nozzle will not eliminate full-service stations. They will still exist! They will survive! My beloved mother can tell you the locations of the full-service stations in New Hampshire, which have not been squashed by self-serve competition. And, just to clarify, there is nothing wrong with full-service stations. I do not think you’re a bad person if you like the convenience offered by these establishments. My quarrel is not with the industry, but with the law. Oregon, stop treating me like a child and give me the freaking pump, so that I don’t have to pay $5.50 a gallon out here. What a concept. I can vape myself to cancer and popcorn lung if I so choose, but woe unto he who squeezes the gas pump, lest some trickle out upon his shoe.

I did find a solution. Oregon’s most rural counties can’t staff their stations (no one wants to work anymore, including me), so if I stay in the eastern part of the state, I can still hold onto a shred of self-respect. I was going to drive down the coast, but no longer. I’m staying in the middle of nowhere, where I can stew in silence. Okay. Going to bed before I give myself a stroke. Good night.