Does any of this make sense to anyone?
Though he may be about 50 years slow, New Jersey's current governor is finally proposing a repeal of this ban. He wants to give motorists the option to pump their own gas. Dumbfoundingly, the reaction to said proposal is mixed. Apparently there are a number of people who are not, in fact, heralding this proposal as a means of ushering New Jersey into the present century.
Check out this quote from Assemblyman John S. Wisniewski, a Democrat from Middlesex County and chairman of the Transportation Committee: "Telling a motorist that self-serve will save them money at the pump is like telling someone that they could save money on a new home by building it themselves."
Now that's a confoundingly incompetent statement if I've ever heard one. For one, yes. Those are two comparable things to tell a consumer. You will save money on self-serve gasoline. You will save money if you build your own house. I should expect to see a rise in self-built homes in New Jersey as cost-conscious drivers respond to the assemblyman's remark.
However, I believe he's trying to tell us that self-serve gas will not provide nearly as quality of a product as full service. It takes skill to build a house, and it take skill to pump gas, the statement implies. Now, I don't know how anyone, let alone someone serving on a transportation committee, could legitimately believe such a thing. I know New Jersey isn't the most civilized of states, but even in Mississippi the pump jockey is not considered a skilled laborer. Are the attendants required to go to a specialized school for two years? Do employers require their attendants to have college degrees? Or are New Jersey politicians seriously concerned that self-serve motorists will blow up their cars because they handled the gas improperly?
3 comments:
I don't know if you've heard or not, but we're sort of having a gas crisis here in the United States. A gallon of it now costs more than a carmel macchiato (that's fact). Perhaps you should save your "humor" for things that aren't important right now.
(But these were pretty funny paragraphs.)
Man, I really hate it when my car explodes at the gas station. It happens to me almost every day.
Al,
Humor should be *reserved* for crisis issues. We should promote making light of the serious burdens in our society. Like for example, the word I have to type as verification to post this comment is "flarimpl"...c'mon this is pretty funny stuff.
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