Gas Prices Drop to $0.31/gallon?

If a friend frantically told you that s/he had just filled up a tank of gas for about $5.00 at the local gas station, what would your first thought be?

1) "Must be a small tank in that car!"
2) "April Fools Day already?"
3) "ZOMG I MUST HAVE THAT FOR MYSELF!"

Well if you chose option 3, you'd be one of the people in the insanely long line taking advantage of a computer glitch that caused medium-quality gasoline to go from $3.09/gallon to $0.309/gallon in Rockford, Illinois. For 90 solid minutes, it was a car-driver's dream come true. And word-of-mouth caused lines crawling down the street in that short amount of time.

In fact, since it was a computer glitch and not an actual promotion, the cashier had no idea was was going on for quite some time. She just kept figuring people were paying for $5 of gas and hooking a gallon-and-a-half into their cars and calling it a day. She slowly started to realize what was going on as people informing friends cause a line at the pumps that spilled into the driveway and then down the street. Her friend working at the sandwich shop a few doors down bothered to call and say, "You've got a line."

It's not known how many cars were able to fill up at the 31-cent gas price before the manager ordered all the pumps to be shut down until the glitch could be fixed. All I know is that if my friends happened to be in that Illinois town of Rockford and managed to fill up, I'm sure lots of hilarious digital camera phots would have been taken, marvelling at the gas pump showing the price and amount of gas pumped. Possibly with a cheesy thumbs-up for emphasis. But then again, my friends can be kind of weird.

And let that be a lesson to you: if a friend calls you up and gives you that kind of news - don't ponder or dawdle - get the heck over there before the manager figures it out!