Why New Jerseyans don't pump their own gas...

As a Jersey girl, I have often had to explain why I didn't know how to pump my own gas before I moved out of state. You see, when you need to refuel your vehicle in the good ol' Garden State, you simply pull into any gas station, roll down your window, and tell the gas station attendant what you need as well as your mode of payment. This is usually in the form of "Regular, fill it up, cash." You can throw a "please" in there at your leisure or maybe even ask for fancy Super, but you leave the work to the expert. No tip or getting out of your car is required. It's just what New Jerseyans do. All non-Jersey natives seem baffled by this, and I have usually explained that it's illegal to pump your own gas because it's a fire hazard. I could just be making that up, though.

This week I've theorized a slightly silly reason but possible reason as to why New Jerseyans don't pump their own gas: guilt.

My tiny home state is a fairly industrial one, and packed full of (slightly insane) drivers. In a perfect world, such a compact tract of land would have better public transportation and greater concern for energy efficiency, but, alas, it does not. Perhaps as a way of dealing with our exorbitant energy use, New Jerseyans have "outsourced" the shame of fuel burning (at least when it comes to our cars) to a third party: the humble gas station attendant. If you think about it, gasoline for one's car is the most direct use of a fossil fuel that people have - the driver decides how many miles are driven, pumps his/her own fuel, pays for it at the point of sale, and thus most directly feels the negative impact of using so much gas (whether it is by being hit in the wallet or the actual guilt of contributing to the depletion of a limited natural resource). So maybe the fact that New Jerseyans pay a gas station attendant to pump their own gas reduces the negative associations with burning fossil fuel. I mean, you're paying some dude(tte) to do the dirty work for you. You can drive on blissfully, ignorant of how much gas you're burning. What do you care?

This long and rambly rant is simply a segue into this: I just returned from a 4th of July roadtrip from Chicago to Jersey (and back again...more bloggin' to follow on the trip itself!), and I never want to drive or burn fossil fuels in such a direct manner ever again. OK, that is unrealistic, but I'm definitely walking more and taking more public transportation from now on. And I swear I will never own a Hummer. Pumping so much gas in such a short period of time makes me feel as if I have blood on my hands. Even if it's, at worst, the fossilized blood of baby dinosaurs.

I think that studying environmental issues in elementary school really messed me up as a kid. As if the living in New Jersey part didn't do enough damage. Oy.