“Need Gas”: The New “Will Work For Food”?
Earlier this afternoon, while exiting the freeway, I noticed a man standing at the base of the off-ramp holding a sign. I thought it was the usual “will work for food” or something similar, but as I got closer, I could see it read “need gas”.
Fighting the temptation to go to the grocery store and come back to give the guy a can of refried beans, I quickly rolled down the window and asked him where his car was. “Uh, up the road” he said, pointing in a direction that doesn’t exist on local road maps.
The man’s clever twist on an old occupation aside, something occurred to me: his sign was believable in this Bizarro-world we find ourselves in.
When I was younger and started driving in the early 80’s, most of my friends had enough money for gas, but not enough to buy a car.
Now, many of us have enough for a car, but not enough for the gas, and the sign guy on the corner has found a niche in this market. For a split second, it was a believable scenario.
I didn’t have a gas can in the car, or I would have given him a few of gallons of gas and made sure to stop by later to congratulate him on his “Gas for sale, only $2 a gallon!” sign.
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