Gas, much?

I have to admit that I'm not really paying attention to the whole financial/fuel news lately. Or to the news lately (expect for the cnnbrk on Twitter). But now that I'm actually trying to find some news that seems like it should be out there, I can't... ?

So sometime between going to knit for a little while this afternoon @3 and leaving Yarns Etc @3:45, Chapel Hill went and ran out of gas.

I have been in dire need of fuel on my scooter for a while now, but since there are no gas stations in between home and school, I would have to go well out of my way to refuel. So I basically just ride it out until the needle dips about halfway through the Red Line of Death. Today I decided to make my refueling trip a little more exciting by stopping by Yarns Etc to see if we got the new shipment of Cascade 220 that I've been dying to knit this sweater out of. But, no, it is not there yet... So I sat and knit my socks for a while instead. Anyway, on my way there, all the gas stations were on the left, so I decided I'd just get some gas on the way back. I was eying the prices, and a little surprised to see one place that had it for $4.05, but I figured that since I only need ONE GALLON, that wouldn't be the end of the world. So a mere 45 minutes later, when I drove past and saw the price sign had no numbers on it, I thought it was a little funny, but never even considered the possibility of the place having NO GAS LEFT. I pulled into the next station to see plastic bags over the handles and that's when my stomach dropped.

There are only like 4 gas stations on that side of town; 3 were definitely out of gas so my brain told me that there was no way in hell the 4th would have any. F*&$, just a 1/4 of a gallon would get me home and still leave me enough to ride to school and back for the rest of the week. The only other gas stations I knew of were up a hill that I sure as hell wasn't going to push my scooter up when it ran out of gas. My only option was to check the 4th station. On my way there, I ran through many different scenarios and possible solutions, the best of which was for me to cross my fingers and pray that I had enough to get to Matt's parents' house and leave my scooter there until Chapel Hill had gas again. The worst of which was running out of gas in the middle of a 5 lane road, bursting into tears while pushing my scooter and myself to safety, and leaving my scooter all alone in the big University Mall parking lot (and then never seeing it again).

You will imagine my relief when I got to the gas station to find not only that they had gas (only regular unleaded, but that's all I needed anyway) but it was $3.85! Unfortunately, people are still assholes and even though my scooter only holds like 0.953 gallons (wow that's how empty my tank was.... It's can hold a gallon. Period.), folks in giant cars had to cut in front of me -nearly running me over in the parking lot- and get to the tanks first. Not only would they dry up the tanks faster than me, but they would take infinitely more time than I would to fill up. Whatever, I got gas and that's the important thing.

I know people were freaked out last week about gas and all went out and bought it all up, but that was a while ago, so what happened TODAY? And why can't I find news about it?