Brother, Can You Spare Some Gas?

[Raffine]

I was leaving work today and was confronted by miles of idiots, er, panicked citizenry blocking my way 'cause they were lining up at the gas station down the street. Traffic was even backed up on I40 because of gas lines.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/09/19/nashville.gas/

I was supposed to drive into the city tomorrow but forget that!

[Mr. DS]

Please note the quote from Tommy Lee Jones below in my signature line. 

[CheezeFlixz]

People are lemmings.

[Raffine]

Exactly.

The funny part of the story is I was completely clueless as to what was going on and only mildly curious as to why people were in some kind of frenzy. I though maybe some Kenny Chesney tickets had gone on sale - available only at Mapco. I had no idea there was some sort of headline-grabbing Apocalypse thingy going down until I checked the news online late last night.

It was my SHAUN OF THE DEAD moment. 

[CheezeFlixz]

There are a gas scare here, it shot up to over $4 gal, nearly $5 in some areas. I have a large tank in the barn that holds a couple of 100 gallons so I wasn't worried about it, the governor declared a state of emergency do to the spike. People lined up all over to buy gas at gouge prices, I had friends calling me wanting to buy mine ... I was like no ... go be a 'sheeple' I'll need it until reality sets back in, I keep gas and diesel just for these events. The generator which will power everything runs on diesel, but with diesel prices I'm going to convert it to propane.

that's my other word for the 'lemming' is 'sheeple'

[Mr. DS]

This story kind of reminds me of what they do in RI when a huge snow storm is on the way.  People FLOCK to grocery stores for bread and milk even if there is three inches of snow predicted.  You'd figure people would try for something a little less perishable in the case of an emergency. 

[CheezeFlixz]

This story kind of reminds me of what they do in RI when a huge snow storm is on the way.  People FLOCK to grocery stores for bread and milk even if there is three inches of snow predicted.  You'd figure people would try for something a little less perishable in the case of an emergency. 

They do that here when they predict flurries. They see one lone flake and it's panic.

[Mr. DS]

In my hometown, 3 feet was considered a flury.  Recall one year being able to easily walk over our fence using the snow.

[dean]

Kind of reminds me of that line I heard in a movie which was about some study: Some guy just lined up at a random door and waited and eventually people started lining up behind him and figured it was worth the wait for whatever it is.

[Trevor]

I was leaving work today and was confronted by miles of idiots, er, panicked citizenry blocking my way 'cause they were lining up at the gas station down the street. Traffic was even backed up on I40 because of gas lines.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/09/19/nashville.gas/

I was supposed to drive into the city tomorrow but forget that!

This reminds me of the paranoia that set in after South Africa's first democratic election in 1994 ~ people stockpiled food, water and all the rest, panic was widespread and what happened? Nothing. 

[Jack]

The media just loves to play that stuff up to the hilt.  Here in Minnesota, we'll have Winter Storm Warnings flashing across the TV screen, annoying the hell out of everybody, then we get 2" of snow.  When we do get a foot, everyone's ignored the warning because nobody pays any attention to them anymore.  I'll never forget one time I was watching the weather channel, and one of their reporters was up in Minneapolis, all bundled up like he was standing on the North Pole or something.  In the background you could see people walking around with their jackets open, no hat or mittens, just enjoying themselves. 

[ghouck]

This reminds me of the paranoia that set in after South Africa's first democratic election in 1994 ~ people stockpiled food, water and all the rest, panic was widespread and what happened? Nothing. 

People did the same thing here for the Y2K thing, I know at least two people that put on additions to their home because they figured survival will depend on the numbers of their group, and their addition was to house their "Clan".

Me, I didn't do anything. I did laugh about all the speak of worldwide devestation beforehand, and the best anyone showed me was a clip of some slurpee machine coming on at the wrong time and somehow the product being spilled all over the floor (IIRC, it was designed to automatically clean itself, and make the product, and it kinda tried to do both at once, causing the spill.) Someone showed me a videotape of it, as if it were proof of reason to panic, , they didn't realize it was to make the point that there was no real reason to panic.