Pumping Us for Info

by Roger Snow

On behalf of all the drivers in Las Vegas, here’s a modest proposal to Shell and Sinclair, 76 and 7-Eleven, Mobil and Maverick, even Fab Freddy’s and Fast Eddie’s. In other words, pretty much every gas station but Costco:

Knock it off.

Not the nozzle, of course. That could lead to a gas station conflagration straight out of “The Birds,” or “Christine,” or if you can’t remember back that far, pretty much any movie starring Arnold Schwarzenegger or directed by Michael Bay.

No, instead, you must cease the senseless Q&A sessions when we're trying to pay. Do you have a membership number? Is this a credit card? Is this a debit card? What’s your PIN? Do you want a 10-cent fuel award today? Do you want a receipt? What’s your ZIP code? Would you like a car wash? What kind of car wash?

Neil Gorsuch won't get grilled this badly by Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren at his nomination hearing.

How many times have you stood there, like a chump at the pump, squeezing and squeezing, wondering why nothing’s coming out? What is this, 1972 all over again? But it’s not an oil embargo giving you a flaccid hose; rather, you haven’t fully completed your questionnaire.

This game of 20 questions is especially annoying come July or August. Question: How is it possible that all of these stations are constructed in such a way that no matter where the sun hangs in the sky, there’s never any shade?

We’re motorists, not masochists. None of us enjoys shielding our eyes from the ultra-violent ultraviolet rays as we peck key after key, like a one-fingered man hacking into NORAD.

Even better are those stations that don’t have individual credit-card acceptors. Instead, they make everyone queue up at a single, centrally located kiosk. Perfect. Scarcity meets competition. It’s a nice twist straight out of “The Hunger Games.”

And finally, who decided to blast that TV six inches from our ears? The Marquis de Sade? Equipping gas stations with the world’s cheapest speaker system and cranking the volume up “Spinal Tap” style was an especially tortuous touch.

Elon Musk, take me away!

The time has come, you fuelish franchisees, to quiet down and speed up. You can find oil reserves in the ground under the ocean; you should be able to figure out if my Visa is debit or credit. Yes, we want our fuel reward today. What do you think? We want to save it for later, like leftovers from a Chinese restaurant? Unless you’re going to send us a fruit basket, stop bugging us for our ZIP code. Mute that TV and, oh, when it comes to the car wash, don’t ask. We’ll tell. Besides, our cars wouldn’t be so dirty if they weren’t stuck here so long.

There, just saved us all a lot of time and aggravation.

And one more thing: Get rid of that nine-tenths of a cent nonsense. You’re not fooling anyone.

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Roger Snow is a senior vice president at Scientific Games.