I had my head chewed off (figuratively) last week for daring to (gasp!) pump my own gas! Apparently, that’s against the law there.
Why? Job creation? Safety? Is the average Oregonian motorist too inept to opperate a gas pump?
Any other states with this bizarre law?
That is bizarre…here in Oklahoma( where the men are men and the sheep are nervous) you would get your head chewed off for NOT pumping your own gas…
Maybe they have a gas station attendent union in Oregon…
Of course that’s just my opinion I could be wrong.
Dennis Miller
Only two states have this law. Oregon & New Jersey. The laws are there to help the labor force. These states believe that if there is a job that can be done by an employee - hire one to do it, don’t force the customer to do it themselves.
Hell is Other People.
Actually, I believe that New Jersey, at least, predicates the law on the assumption the common man can’t pump gas without significant risk of spillage, explosion, etc.
I recall my surprise visiting a girlfriend in New Jersey. At the time I lived in California. The prices were considerably less than in CA, but the gas was pumped by an attendant. When I mentioned that, in CA, you paid an extra 40 or 50 cents for the service of pumped gas, she shook her head as if to say it all about us dumb idiots on the left coast…
Yeah, Oregon sure has some quirks. We hate sales taxes and self-serve gasoline. We don’t mind assisted suicide. We’re mean to Californians. We have the biggest freshwater port on the West Coast (Wow! Portland must be huge! No, it’s just that the big ports on the West Coast are saltwater). We love salmon so much that there isn’t much left locally.
Boris:
I’m happy to report that your landsmen didn’t live up to their anti-California reputation during my trip last week. Except for the agitated station attendant, Oregonians were very friendly to me (CA plates and all).
I do have to agree with you about you guys being quirky, though. I got kind of a Stepford vibe from the people in the restaurants and the tidy farmhouses. I don’t know how people can drive so slow and still drive so badly. It was kind of refreshing to cross over into Washington where the bad drivers are also jerks; just like in California.
That may have been a factor, but the main difference in the new designs is that they vent less vapor.
John W. Kennedy
“Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.”
– Charles Williams
Ursa Major
Well it’s good that you were treated well. I’ve heard nasty stories about people moving to Oregon, meeting nice friendly neighbors who turn to icewater upon learning that the newcomers are Californians. This does not meet my demanding standards of hospitality.
Although I understand it, since Oregonians used to like to think the state was never going to get crowded, and now the highways are full of traffic. It’s still not as bad as a lot of cities, but it makes us sigh heavily.
I’m not Oregonian, originally, but I’ve lived here for several years. I personally like the gas pump thing, but I also prefer to do banking through a teller and go to stores, physically to shop.
I’m at the University of Oregon right now, which is sometimes called “University of California at Eugene,” which a show-of-hands in a class lately showed was pretty understandible.
A Texan, a Californian and an Oregonian are in a bar in Pendleton. The Texan pours a shot of tequila and tosses it down. Then he throws bottle in the air, pulls his six shooter and blasts it. Barkeep asks why he did that and he replies “heck son, we’ve got plenty of tequila down in Texas.”
The Californian repeats the Texan’s performance with a glass of wine, justifying it with “we’ve got plenty of Chardonnay in Napa.”
The Oregonian leisurely drinks his Red Hook then tosses the bottle in the air. Without missing a beat he pulls his gun, plugs the Californian between the eyes, holsters his weapon and catches the bottle. Looking at the bartender he says, “have to recycle these.”