When I first travelled on my own into the States (for Burning Man) rather than travelling with someone else I didn't understand gas prices.
I don't just mean gallons vs litres, I mean I actually called Jason and said that I thought the gas tank might be broken because of how little it cost to "fill it up". (No, really, I thought the gauge might be malfunctioning and I only filled a quarter tank or something...??) Jason said that no, that's just how much cheaper gas is in the states. It was a really weird "wow" moment.
(Not to be ignored is that in Oregon I had to put some sort of "gas purifier" into my tank because the gas there was known to be really un... clean? But that's just an aside. Plus you can't pump your own gas there which is weird.)
So lately, some of the people I see online are having great upset at their elevated gas prices and putting blame on this or that and so I went and found a thing that "translates" Canadian gas prices to US gas prices and, well, they're still UNDER what we pay.
Someone just yesterday posted a "wow, I can't believe that this actually happened" price thing and, well, it's still under what I am paying for gas right now.
I feel bitchy saying this but it's like ... welcome to the reality we've been dealing with for ages? I dunno man. I think sometimes I just get mad when people don't know how good they've had it and then complain about something bad that some of the rest of us are just used to.
Blah.
7 comments:
Ah, gas prices. The thing we will complain about until the end of time. We are, indeed, notorious gas guzzlers compared to literally every other country in the world.
But this is amusing. I live in a border state and spent plenty of time in Canada growing up, so I understood the difference between the metric and imperial system, as well as a general knowledge of the exchange rate. In college, I did a road trip with a friend who had never been outside the US and wanted to see Toronto. When we got across the border, she saw gas prices and lit up. I had to bring her back down to earth and tell her that that was the price per liter, not per gallon. She asked me what that meant, and I said, "Well... it means it will probably end up costing about 4 times as much as you expect." Crestfallen.
I'm so glad I'm not the only Canadian who's had major US-gas-conversion-price confusion! lol
Funny, I grew up on a border town and we'd always hop across the border (when it was SO much easier to do so... no passports needed, etc.) to get gas, cheese and milk because they were so much cheaper "down there". Plus as teens the Denny's across the border was the only place open 24 hours a day. Now it blows mind how different things are (I mean pre-Covid of course!)
Oh and? US Cheerios always tasted so much better, plus y'all had Capri Suns before us! ;)
Cheerios taste different? I... I had no idea! Smarties are way better than M&Ms. Cadbury was hard to come by in the states, and we never had pickle or ketchup chips until I was in college!
Ah, yes, my magical childhood of hopping back and forth across the Blue Gate bridge and all you had to say to the border guards were "American!" or "Canadian!"
They do Kandijay, and I never have figured out why! Oh and if you have access to any British import stores where you are, Smarties from the UK.. the orange ones have just a tinge of flavour it's so cool!
We lived through the best border times it seems :)
Cheerios in Canada appear to have Monoglycerides, where the Cheerios in the US have Vitamin E instead?
Maybe that's the difference?
Could be? I think I tried to figure it out years ago and it was some "small" thing in the ingredients you'd not have even thought about.
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