Twenty-two cents per gallon.
Can you imagine an immediate $2-a-gallon price drop in gasoline?
Well, I can imagine my pleasure in seeing 22 cents on one of the many gas stations in Muncie - especially with my 22-gallon gas tank that is usually only somewhere between one-quarter and one-half full.
However, that low price became a reality for many customers here in Muncie driving down Memorial Drive on Sunday.
Between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., the Admiral gas station at the corner of Memorial Drive and Gharkey Street priced its premium gasoline at 22 cents per gallon.
Drivers all along Memorial Drive - and probably all of Muncie as the rumor spread throughout the city - flocked to the gas station.
After approximately six hours, the station found and fixed its mistake. The gas station attendant misplaced the decimal point, accidentally pricing gas at 22 cents per gallon instead of $2.20.
The fact that cars flocked to the gas station shows the mentality of Hoosiers and probably Americans everywhere.
People see their weekly, bi-weekly or daily gas fill-up as a primary reason for seeing less money in their pockets. Even with the gas drop from above $3 a gallon to nearly $2 a gallon for regular unleaded, Americans still feel gas prices are too high.
In September, a rumor was spread that gas prices were raising to $4 a gallon in Anderson, and every gas station in nearby Yorktown was backed up with three or four cars waiting at each pump.
Sunday, when the gas price on Memorial Drive went down to 22 cents a gallon, there was the same reaction. The only difference was the $25 saved between a $5 and a $30 fill-up.
The mob mentality seen in these two freak occurrences was worse than any Tickle-Me-Elmo or Cabbage Patch Kid rampage.
Oil has become the life-blood of the American economy, as well as the power source for all our "necessary" sport utility vehicles and Hemi engines.
The outbreak of an extreme gasoline price increase has worried millions of Americans and many politicians and analysts - but as for extreme price drops, we should be just as concerned.
As much as America would like to see gas at 22 cents a gallon - or even $1.50 a gallon - the unexpected drop would cause mass hysteria and pandemonium to the status-quo of American life.
Lines would be unbearable and violence would ensue. Within the 30 minutes I waited for my fill-up during the $4 gas scare a few months ago, people were honking their horns and verbally assaulting those ahead of them.
This is what could happen again with a dramatic increase or decrease in the price of gas during either a national or international crisis - or a mistake as happened Sunday on Memorial Drive.
In this world of competing economies, if this American experiment would fail, it would likely not be through military action, but instead with the fall of our capitalist economy.
A depression on the scale of the Great Depression would cause massive chaos, and rising gas prices would no doubt play a major role in such an occurrence.
The reaction to this weekend's gas slip-up should concern us about our American mentality toward our economy, but at the moment, all we can do is say, "Thank God it was not on a holiday weekend."
Write to Matthew at mlstephenson@bsu.edu
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