I'm Outa Here
A Massachusetts gas station owner fed up with what he considers attempts by oil companies to fleece customers with outrageously high prices at the pump has stopped selling gas as a protest.
Reynold Gladu, who has run Ren’s Mobil Service in downtown Amherst for nearly 50 years, drained his tanks in June and has no current plans to refill them.
“I don’t want to be part of it anymore,” Gladu told The Daily Hampshire Gazette for a story published one Tuesday. “This is the biggest rip-off that ever has happened to people in my lifetime.”
Gasoline in Massachusetts is averaging more than $5 per gallon, according to AAA New England.
The business will continue to do oil changes and other repairs, but Gladu acknowledges it is unlikely he will be able to remain open for long without selling gas.
“Dealing with Mobil, they don’t think through their pricing policies anymore,” Gladu said. “I’ve served their product, but I refuse to do it anymore, because they’re only getting richer.”
Julie King, a spokesperson for ExxonMobil Corp., wrote in an email reply to the newspaper that the price at the pump is out of her company’s control and is based on several factors, including the price of crude.
It’s all Putin’s fault, anyway, right?
Not My Levis, Not My Circus
Before Stephen Patterson of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, boarded a flight from Arnold Palmer Regional Airport in early June, he stopped for a drink in the airport bar and paid with a $100 bill, which was conveniently and discreetly stamped with “for motion picture use only,” WPXI-TV reported.
The cashier at the bar notified police officers, and they were waiting for Patterson on two days later when he flew back into the airport in bucolic Latrobe, Pennsylvania.
“The suspect said that the pants he was wearing were not his, and he found the $100 bill in the pocket, so he decided to just use it," Park Police Chief Henry Fontana said. Mr. Patterson was arrested on felony charges, borrowed trousers and all.
Jugg in tha Jug
For your edification we present a nominee for Least Competent Thug: Mr. Ladesion Riley.
Mr. Riley, 30, who raps under the name 213 Jugg god, was one of four people arrested in Nashville on June 6 for robbing an ATM technician as he serviced a machine at a Bank of America location.
Riley’s videos have appeared on YouTube, and his latest song is called Make It Home. It refers to… you guessed it: robbing ATMs. Riley and his co-criminals are from Houston, so they’re facing federal charges and FBI scrutiny. Meanwhile, the Houston Police Officers’ Union mocked Mr. Riley on its Facebook page: “IRONY: When you make a rap song called Make It Home about bank jugging and hitting ATMs out of state, and then don’t make it home to Houston.”
News that Sounds Like a Joke
In what seems like an extraordinarily bad idea in the age of COVID-19, a restaurant in Scottsdale, Arizona, encourages patrons to enhance their food or drink by licking a dining room wall made of Himalayan rock salt.
This sounds so improbable that the satirical NPR quiz show Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me actually used the story for one its stump-the-celebrity quiz questions: “Which of these news stories is actually true?”
And yes, Virginia, it’s true. The head chef at The Mission restaurant brought in the rocks to “improve the overall ambiance and add a unique touch” for customers enjoying tequila shots. For those who are squeamish about the germs, the rock salt reportedly has natural sanitary properties, but the restaurant staff also regularly wipe down the walls.
I think I’ll stick with the beer, thanks all the same.