Merlene at the Pump

MERLENE:
Hey, Freddy. My old buddy.

FREDDY:
Fill her up?

MERLENE:
I'm broke.

FREDDY:
You still divorced?

MERLENE:
I said I was broke, didn't I?

FREDDY:
When are you going to marry me?

MERLENE:
I'm here for gas, Freddy.

FREDDY:
And you got no money for gas. When are you going to marry me?

MERLENE:
I'm not on the market.

FREDDY:
I got the ring picked out.

MERLENE:
Good luck with that. How come it's $2.80 a gallon?

FREDDY:
Isn't that a bitch? But it's going to be $3.50 by Tuesday.

MERLENE:
I can't pay $2.80.

FREDDY:
You can't pay nothing, Merlene. That's why you got to marry me.

MERLENE:
We're not in high school, Freddy.

FREDDY:
Thank you, Jesus Christ, we're not in high school. I'm my own boss here. I can blow spit out of my ass anytime I want to now.

MERLENE:
Yuh, that's important to me too. How come the price is so high?

FREDDY:
It's manipulation. Read the papers.

MERLENE:
You mean it's high because of the war?

FREDDY:
No, more like the other way around. We're fighting the war because the price of gas is so high.

MERLENE:
There's a shortage?

FREDDY:
Nahh, there's no shortage. They got oil coming out of their noses over there. All they got to do is pump it. Maybe long term, they'll run out of oil, but there's no shortage now. They're just pumping less so they can jack up the prices. When they see our economy turn south again with people buying less, they'll drop the price again.

MERLENE:
So what am I supposed to do in the meantime?

FREDDY:
Supply and demand, Merlene. Get smart. If everybody used less, they'd have to lower the price, and you wouldn't be spending as much at the pump anyway.

MERLENE:
Just fill it half way, okay? I'll pay you at the end of the week.

FREDDY:
And then what happens when you don't have any money for me at the end of the week? How am supposed to buy beer? Think practical, Merlene.

MERLENE:
So what do you expect me to do, buy one of those Japanese half-breeds?

FREDDY:
They're called hybrids. And they're making them over here now. For starters, sure, get a hybrid. You'd be buying less gas and your kid wouldn't be getting his asthma so much. But you'd be even better off if you got a diesel engine and bought bio-diesel or straight veg so you don't have to use any petroleum products at all.

MERLENE:
How am I going to buy a diesel car?

FREDDY:
Same way you bought this scummobile here. Or better yet, don't drive so much. Next time you move, move closer to where your job is, or closer to the center of town where they have mass transit. Tell your county to stop letting them build homes where it costs you millions of tax dollars to build new sewer and water connections out to the middle of nowhere instead of reusing perfectly good land in the city. "Smart growth," they call it. Live where you don't have to drive your kid an hour to soccer practice and another hour to the mall. Invest in renewable fuels that don't cost $2.80.

MERLENE:
If people did all of that, you wouldn't have a business.

FREDDY:
Yuh, I got a great business now with people like you who can't pay me. But what happens to my station doesn't matter, Merlene. Cause I got a brilliant future. I got the best future in the world. You know why?

MERLENE:
Why.

FREDDY:
Cause you're going to marry me.

MERLENE:
Okay, how about a quarter of a tank until Wednesday?