Doesn't Anybody Make Porn Anymore?

I had to get gas tonight. I was running very low, almost out-you know the expression, “running on fumes?” Yeah, well, that’s what I was doing. So, I stopped, on the way home, at my local Valero gas station, the one that used to be a Diamond Shamrock (back before they converted them all over to Valero’s, as part of a “clever” marketing ploy) and filled up my car with fuel.

It’s a boring process, getting gas is, especially when you’re almost out. It takes a while to fill up the tank, even a little 12 gallon tank like mine. So, there I sat, with my feet propped up against the little curb, watching folks line up at the car wash, thinking about things. I remembered that I was in the same gas station, the very same one, where Steve’s car once broke down-we were stuck there at some odd time of night. It was something like 2 am, we stopped to get gas, and his old Honda would not start again. Lucky for us, the guy from CarAd.com (this was back in the .com days) happened to pull up, at the pump next to ours, to get gas too. (At 2 am, imagine that.) He was able to get Steve’s car working again, and get us on our way. (Lucky for us, right? What are the odds? God bless you, Mr. CarAd.com man, wherever you are in the great dot com bubble of a universe.)

Tonight, at the very same station, there I stood, waiting for the pump, the slow moving pump to fill up my tank, my mind drifting, thinking about the old dot com days and thinking about nothing in particular and everything in between. That’s when I spotted it. The pump, the gas pump that I was filling up at, started flashing at me. It was actually blinking, trying to tell me something. It was trying to talk.

“Check us out on Valero.com!” It said, in its happy bright light LED style “voice” (which was actually just lights blinking and flashing long enough to distract me from watching a new Mustang drive through the now sudsy car wash.)

Would somebody please answer this question for me. Why on earth would I go to Valero.com to checkout a website for a gas station immediately after I just filled up? I mean, what could possibly be on a gas station website that I need to read to begin with? I started going over this in my head, thinking about what could be on that website. It must be something quite impressive, right? I mean, crap, it’s making all of the gas pumps blink. (Imagine all of the Valeros, all around the world, with their gas pumps blinking the same message at the same time.) Oh, now this has got to be something really good, right? It’s not like they could have the hours the gas station were open, no, you see, this is a 24 hour “pay at the pump” kind of a joint. So, what could be on that website that could possibly be so pressing? So urgent? It must just be mind blowing, that website, right?

Maybe they have little known facts, you know, things like the date and time those hot dogs, now rolling around that rolling grill for God knows how many years, were first put in there. Maybe they have a listing of all the different color Slurpee’s you can get inside the gas station. Oh yes, I could really see that. I mean, here I sit, getting gas, filling up my tank, paying at the pump, zooming off into the great beyond, only to come to a screeching halt somewhere down the road when I discover that, much to my horror, I’ve just left the only gas station in town that has any grape Slurpee left to its name. Oh dear! I’d have to spin around faster than The Stig to get me some of that grape Slurpee, yes indeed. I can really spot the use for this website now. Surf on this! I really need that Valero.com, don’t I? Sign me up! I may have already won! (It’s more useful than twenty two Nigerian diplomats and sixteen penis enlarging pills, that website is.)

I mean, think about it. I had just filled up with gas. why would I need to know anything about the gas station at all? It’s the last place I’d go back to at this point. The next thing I want to see is the bank or the grocery store or, crap, even a dance review featuring aliens playing Canasta on my front lawn would be better than a visit to Valero.com at this particular point in time. What were they thinking putting this on all of their gas pumps and, holy sweet bejesus on a cupcake with sprinkles, what could possibly be on that website that I would want to see at all? I mean, we’re talking about a gas station for crying out loud. Why does a gas station even need a website at all? Don’t people just go there to get gas? It’s not like we have some kind of a magical [Buy Now!] button on our Internet connections that instantly fills our cars up as they rest in our garages (now that, oh my, *that* would be technology at its finest.) No, you have to go and pump the freaking stuff into your gas tank, how is the web relevant to this at all? (Get your damn computers out of my gas tank and I promise to keep my damn gas tank away from my Internet already.)

I liked them better when they were Diamond Shamrock and yet, somehow, I can just sit here imagining a lot of people suddenly “mysteriously” clicking on Valero.com right about now, only to be barraged with a “Visit Our Refineries!” happy blinking icon and link. (Oh the Humanity!)

[So now, what I really want to know is, has anybody told Jeremy Clarkson about this yet? I want to see him pop his cork when he finds out about this “oh so great-drop what you’re doing run and check it out right now” Valero.com website. At least that would be funny, and it might make the website actually worthy of a click or two. Maybe.]

Until next…holy sweet bejesus on a cupcake with sprinkles, they have a website for WHAT?