Despite what anyone may say about New Jersey… our gas prices are pretty good (around $2.70/gallon for regular, which is a little crummy at the moment, but still better than NY) and WE DON’T PUMP OUR OWN GAS. This can be nice, but leaving the state can freak us out. When I first brought my car to college with me in New York, I was scared stiff to fill up the tank. What if I did it wrong? What if I stood there reading the instructions and everyone laughed at me? What if I spilled it and caused a fire?
Poughkeepsie’s currently in the lead for the outside-Monmouth-County photo. Read yesterday’s post and vote now.
By the way- check out http://monmouthdailyphoto.blogspot.com and tell me what you think (here or there). I want negative criticisms.
(Please. Thank you.)
April 30, 2007 at 3:06 am
well if you can (pough)keep(sie) a secret, i am just learning to drive, so i understand the fear of not being able to fill the tank up properly…..but don’t tell anyone else i shall stuff a potato down your trombone!
April 30, 2007 at 2:22 pm
and i thought full serve gas stations were nothing but urban legend as i’ve never seen one with my own eyes. maybe i haven’t been looking hard enough?
April 30, 2007 at 4:47 pm
Pod- Stop before it’s too late! You’re learning to drive on the WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD!
RD- I think the only states that mandate them are NJ and Oregon. Or maybe it’s Washington. But clearly you need to take a little trip.
April 30, 2007 at 6:46 pm
NJ and Oregon. The only two. I’ve been to both. It was kind of funny in OR actually, because I had just spent quite a long time driving across the country and was on my way back, and had thoroughly forgotten that there was another state which didn’t have self-serve. So I started to get out of the car before I realized that there were these very nice, clean-looking, friendly uniformed people trying to serve me. (Note that due to the appearance and manner of the attendants, it still managed to be utterly unreminiscent of the Jersey gas experience.)
April 30, 2007 at 7:04 pm
Is this a new law in Jersey?
I filled up a the GW bridge ( Jersey Side) once, & I think I filled it myself.
Nice shot by the way
April 30, 2007 at 7:31 pm
It’s not new at all. NJ banned self-serve in 1949 (back when full service was normal for most of the country). And by now, no matter where you live in the U.S., people’s habits are so entrenched that it is politically impossible to change it from either side to the other.
Incidentally, traditionalists would not call what NJ (or OR) have “full service” but rather “minimum service” because all the attendants do is pump gas. I remember back in the early ’80s (riding with my parents), attendants always cleaned your windshield and offered to check your oil. Nowadays, you’re lucky if they turn your gas cap tight enough to prevent the check engine light from coming on the next day.
April 30, 2007 at 9:26 pm
“I’ll take a Pepsi Free.”
“Look, pal, if you want to stay here you’re going to have to pay for something.”
“Huh, fine, give me anything without sugar.”
“OK, one black coffee commin’ your way. That’ll be 15 cents.”
JC: “I’ll take a Lead Free,”
“Look, pal, if you want to pull in here, you’ll have to pay for something.”
[After profusely apologizing:] “Huh, fine, give me whatever, just don’t pour sugar down my tank.”
“That’ll be 15 dollars.”
(should have gone with the Pepsi Free. Ain’t I creative. I just typed a whole part of a movie with no punchline and then retyped it without being sure what I was changing or why I was typing in the first place. Wow, I really am special, just G-d’s gift to the world.)
May 1, 2007 at 3:14 am
wait… there is no self-serve in jersey?…
good, god!…
May 1, 2007 at 3:14 am
wait… did that need a comma?…
May 1, 2007 at 9:50 am
John- Your parents drove you around in the early 80′s? You’re younger than I thought. I remember getting my windshield cleaned, too, in the late 80′s-early 90′s… I’d say “those were the days,” but they usually left the windshield streakier than it was before.
Paul- Welp, John appears to have answered your question better than I could. It’s been full-serve for as long as I can remember.
BDPH- You captured my hypothetical reaction perfectly. But now everyone else who hasn’t had the misfortune of meeting me knows what a loser I am. What movie excerpt is that?
m- No, as far as I know, it’s all full-service, as mandated by law. And you did need a comma there. Why? For the amusement of everyone reading your comment.
May 1, 2007 at 3:58 pm
(laugh)…
May 1, 2007 at 9:01 pm
The Pepsi Free exchange comes from Back to the Future. (I cheated by Googling, as is my wont. But in doing so I did pick up an additional tidbit that I can share with all of you: If you search (without the quotes) for “pepsi free pay sugar”, Google will ask “Did you mean: pepsi free gay sugar”?! Hmm…)
Josy, I have actually been wanting to ask if you might allow me to suffer the “misfortune” of meeting you. And now that you know I’m not as geezerly as you had previously feared, I figure now is as good a time as any to ask.
May 2, 2007 at 1:01 pm
I’ve gotten a few weird suggestions like that, too. Google is a kinky little thing.
John, I’m going to decline, at the moment, because I feel you have me at a disadvantage. I have multiple profiles and links and general clues to my identity set up about the site, but I know very little about you.
May 2, 2007 at 9:15 pm
Fair enough, and very understandable. I had actually considered this, and felt I should offer more of myself, but all I have in the way of Web sites is a too-personal-to-share-just-yet blog (which is why I haven’t filled in the Website field).
If there is anything you want to know about me, please ask. Presumably WordPress shows you the e-mail address of commenters? If you don’t feel like revealing your “real” e-mail to me, you could set up a dummy address on Gmail or something. Or you could just ask here, though I probably take up too much of your comment space as it is.
May 5, 2007 at 3:55 pm
I miss pumping my own gas actually. Yes, I’m weird.