These Prices Are Flammable

I work for a convenience store. We have a state of emergency for our area. An oil refinery that services our area has been taken out by storms, so we are facing a fuel shortage. People go insane trying to fuel up. Every gas station in the city raises their prices in response, and we’re unable to keep up with the demand, running out of fuel.

My station is in a neighboring town, and our prices lowered shortly before the emergency was declared. When people realize this, they respond by flocking to us. It’s to the point that we have security outside, directing traffic to gas pumps to keep accidents from happening. Around 90% of all transactions we do are purely for gas, and the store is packed full for nearly my entire shift.

At one point, I have a customer call and frantically ask:

Caller: “Are you out of gas?! I’ve heard the police are out there because people are getting into fistfights at the pumps!”

Me: “No, ma’am. As we’re talking right now, I’m watching our fuel truck top our tanks off. We’ve still got fuel, and we’ll probably not run out for quite some time at this rate.”

In the end, not only did we make the most money in the area on gas sales, but according to the news, every station in the neighboring city ended up being heavily fined for price gouging. For every customer they gouged, it was a $1,000 fine.

They might as well have closed their doors for the entire thing, because I’m pretty sure they lost more than they made in sales for that.