The Great Gas Run of Aught Six

Can you smell it? The fear. The desperation. The anxiety. It’s thick in the spring air, heavy like pollen.

It’s the Great Gas Run of Aught Six. It’s coming, sure enough.

Gas prices are headed back out of sight. It’s been all over the local and national news. The cable news networks are calling it “War on the Middle Class” in big red letters. Everyone keeps harping on it.

Gas prices will top $3 a gallon here soon. Those prices have already hit in other places around the country. Nobody can really explain why, but we’ve seen the prices shoot up here in the mountains the past week or so.

So tonight on the way home, I made it a point to pay attention to the convenience stores. Sure enough, the Exxon station on the corner had premium gas topping $3 a gallon. The Enmark down the road – usally the cheapest – had a gallon of regular for $2.69 a gallon.

But the pumps were packed. People were filling up. Starting to hoard. So the great gas run is starting. Remember last year when the panic set in? People were lined up at gas stations around Asheville, their big SUVs idling as they waited to fill up the giant plastic gas cans in the back seat. About a third of stations in Buncombe County went dry at the height of it all.

Could it happen again? Yes, it could. In fact, it has already started.