Humor | Fairy Tales . . . and just a little Reality

Gas Prices in California Reach $6 a Gallon . . . Just Kidding. That Was Yesterday!

Why do reports about gas increases in CA read like a Fairy Tale?

Fairy tales are alive today even though they were originally make-believe.

There really wasn’t a Cinderella. Or Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, or even Bugs Bunny.

Though Bugs was inspired by a real-life bunny rabbit, so there is that.

No, fairy tales are all about over there.

The evil queen that tricks Sleeping Beauty into biting the apple. The evil stepmother who was so mean to Cinderella and tried to keep her from shagging the prince.

We are not supposed to think fairy tales are real — we just read them to our children before they go to bed at night and hope they don’t have nightmares.

But gas prices of all things, often follow tragedies — not unlike fairy tales.

Bad things befall the innocent in these stories, as characters soon turn into stone or fall asleep for years while evil witches and wizards take advantage of their situation for personal gain and move into someone else’s castle and live happily ever after.

So why is it that during moments of national or international crises, certain people continually take advantage and profit from them — like Maleficent or the giant, with the Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum thing going on?

California has always had the highest gas prices in the nation. Now it’s something like $1.20 above the national average . . . and rising.

Hell, if a coffee machine in the El Segundo refinery breakroom goes down, the price per gallon goes up $.20 that afternoon and every state official will be found nodding solemnly on the 6:00 o’clock News, promising that they are working tirelessly to get the caffeine flowing again, and hope to have the problem resolved in a week or so.

The latest tragedy of course in the fighting in Ukraine.

Did the fighting in that country destroy oil wells as they did in Kuwait in 1991? No. Did the bombs destroy the pipelines for oil flowing out of Ukraine? No, to that question as well. (Though internal refineries and systems are being targeted by the Russians.)

But just like in fairy tales, bad things don’t actually have to happen to scare us. Just the idea that something, somewhere might happen is enough to cause the price per gallon to go up — everywhere.

Example: This Shell station in the beautiful foothills of the Crescenta Valley in California (which is about 10,000 miles from Ukraine) was selling regular unleaded gas for $4.99 per gallon on February 28. By March 7 it was $5.59.

Was there already gasoline in the underground tanks when the attack started– yes. Did that gas come directly from Ukraine? No. At least not in the last few days.

So then, why has the price of gas in my lovely golden state gone up over $.60 per gallon in the last week when we all know the process of getting crude oil from extraction to refining to delivery to gas stations usually takes several months?

Well, the good news is, that the answer to this question and many others like it, can be found in those same fairy tales.

Every fairy tale is a story, albeit a tall tale with little in the way of facts and plenty of imagination. But a story nonetheless, and people love stories.

There are always villains and monsters and a wide assortment of evil people in fairy tales — much like there are monsters and villains in countries and corporations who, like the wicked wolf in the Three Little Pigs saga, are waiting to pounce when opportunity rears its little head.

These tales often explain why people do bad things (Power). Why they’ve taken advantage of the poor creatures just living their lives (Greed). Or why they start wars or even eat grandmothers.

Fairy Tales make us believe that sometimes shit happens and there’s nothing we can do about it. Other than just carry on — and pay the extra fees.

And when some local New channel populates their hard-hitting, heavily researched articles on Google under key phrases like:

• Why are F*****g gas prices going up again in California, or
• What the F**k — $.60 a gallon increase

We can feel comforted that these stories read just like passages from our favorite fairy tales. Few facts. Lots of imagination. And little to be done until the end of the story.

So, when pulling into your local gas station tomorrow in your 2001 Chevy Astro and you watch the dollar wheel spinning like Free Buffet Night at the casino, take heart and know there really isn’t any good reason for what is happening.

No need to worry, that something bad is actually happening here. No cause for actual concern that maybe, our elected officials are looking too keenly toward the high seas, tracking those mega-yachts and not taking enough care for the average Joe — who’s pumping next week’s night out with the missus into his F-150 pickup.

Hell, just go into Johnny’s bedroom and get the story of Little Red Riding Hood — the one that grandma Edith gave him — then go grab a beer, sit and read, safe in the knowledge that there really is nothing to worry about.

It’s all just a fairy tale.

Dr Mehmet Yildiz Karen Madej Tree Langdon Jenine Bsharah Baines James Knight The Secret Aspirant Stuart Englander Esther George George J. Ziogas Paul Myers MBA Adelia Ritchie Rebecca Romanelli Sherry McGuinn Salvatore Cagliari Joseph Lieungh Klara Jane Holloway