Fuel shortage! 📢⛽

OMFG THERE IS A FUEL SHORTAGE… well no but also yes, let me explain!

Just like back at the start of the pandemic here in the UK, the government said “no need to worry there is enough food to go around, keep on as normal” and the news media went on to say “there could be a shortage in some things” followed by some supermarkets saying “we are reducing our range on some items so everybody can get what they need”. This resulted in everybody going bat shit crazy buying up all the loo roll and tins of beans to horde away in their houses for the next few years like there will never be food ever again and we would be shitting ourselves every five seconds.

As just like it has done many a time before history has repeated itself, but this time with the dinosaur go go juice that we all put in our cars.

So what’s the real issues then I hear you say, nothing, there is none. The only thing mentioned was a shortage of drivers to drive HGV’s carrying our food, fuel and Amazon packages to our shops and homes. Measures are in place to help get more HGV trained drivers in the systems quicker to deal with a minor shortage caused by Brexit (not going to mention anything more on that in this one). There is no shortage of fuel, everything is still being made in the bloody refineries and there are lots of tanks full in storage. But you know people can’t possibly understand that as you are still getting packages with those stupid Amazon smiling ticks on them things are still working!

So when the news wants to sell a story because there is no new update on the pandemic or Boris Johnson has not had yet another kid with another wife they start to turn on the money printing machine and come up with a sensational headline and off to the press it goes. A few moments later with the powers beheld in the internet we get flashing up everywhere “there could be a shortage of fuel” only that its missing the words “delivery drivers” at the end of it because well you know that does not sound so bad does it…

I tend to drive until I have about 1/8 of a tank left so the little warning light gently reminds me that I need to feed the car once more. I tend to fill the car right to the top with the hopes that I don’t have to return back to the petrol station until a week and a half at least, more time to do other things like type this up! This is all well and good an I’m lucky as there are about three petrol station near where I work and a further two back at home, always somewhere to go and not needing to put any thought in to it other than what one is the cheapest. This all fails when a bunch of morons decide to take every single last drop of fuel to top of their tanks outside of their normal routine thus artificially causing a shortage because the petrol stations order in what they think they will need for that week or so and no more, costs money after all. (Massive shout out to BBC Radio 4 for explaining all of this… fuck I’m getting old)

So jump cut to me finishing a long day at work jumping in the car and getting that little amber light flash up as I turn the ignition as I start to head off home, right time fill up on the old planet killing liquid and be on my way, I’ll think I’ll have a chicken Kiev tonight. Sounds simple right, no, I was greeted by excessive traffic in the middle of the village I work in way above the normal on a Friday evening. What caused it, people lining up in their cars blocking the roads trying to get in to a petrol station… it’ll be a late dinner tonight I fear.

As I finally managed to drive past the regimentally lined up cars with their indicators flashing away trying to turn in the hopes they can get some fuel I snagged a glimpse of a woman I will call “Susan” filling up her twelve-year-old Honda Jazz and the four green petrol cans lined up on the floor as well. Susan didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who would have been getting fuel for a lawnmower to mow her endless lawns which she tends to tirelessly every day, I know never judge a book by its cover I guess. But I think she was a hording moron who thought that it would be a good idea to stock up on fuel for the next few months so she can attend book club without fail or attend that lunch meet up with the ladies and take it away for somebody who really needs it to get to work!

In conclusion there is no pissing shortage! But those spreading total bullshit now standing with a smug grin chanting “told you so” next to a totally unsafe method of storing a flammable liquid have got their self-fulfilling prophecy by panic buying and using it all up.

Talking of smugness those EV owners are looking pretty smart right now… jammy gits!