Here's the receipt to prove it: $0.499/gallon. Unleaded, regular. Purchased nearly 26 gallons. Just $12.93. Brought back memories of the mid-1970s when I managed a self-service gas station between Raleigh and Garner on U.S. Highway 70.
It was 1976, my last summer as a student at N.C. State University. I had six years of being educated in Political Science under my belt and was headed into my seventh and final year eventually graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in the spring of 1977. I never let my academic work interfere with my education, thus seven years to get that B.A. My education was from writing, editing and learning to put out a newspaper. I worked for the Technician, the student run newspaper, for four of my seven years there. But, I digress.
Needing to earn cash that summer, I answered a newspaper ad for a job with ABC Petroleum, an oil jobber (gasoline broker) for Phillips 66 in Raleigh. Turns out the job was to turn an old gas station with three work bays into a mundane self-service gas station. Location was actually in Garner and on the Raleigh-inward-bound-going-to-work side of the highway. Diagonally across the street was a competitor which caught the going-home traffic.
We cleaned up the building, got the pumps working, displayed our prices, and the customers started coming. Eventually we operated 24-hours a day, until we had to drop back to 18 hours, 6:00 a.m. until midnight. We even had price wars with the competitor. We handled lots of cash; we also accepted credit cards. Since this was owned by ABC Petroleum, we were never out of gas while that competitor sometimes ran dry. I remember starting our prices under 40-cents a gallon but never going over 50-cents before we closed the business because of a robbery after closing one night. I suspected it was an employee, one that closed. No one was ever charged.
So, what about the 49.9-cents a gallon gas at Harris Teeter #496? The displayed price was $1.49.9 per gallon but because of more than 1,000 earned fuel points in April at the HT grocery store there, the price was reduced by one dollar a gallon. Thus the 49.9-cents price. You can buy up to 35 gallons using the points; we timed our purchase to fill up both of cars.
You ask: why so many points at HT? Blame it on the coronavirus. Before COVID-19, we shopped at Harris Teeter, Fresh Market, Publix, Trader Joe's, Aldi, and sometimes Food Lion, Lowe's, Whole Foods, and Lidl, depending on what we want and senior day. Now, we buy 97% of our groceries at nearby HT #496, accumulating one point for every $1 spent at HT. We purchase gift cards, such as Chick-fil-A, Amazon, and other places we shop. HT gives double points on gift cards and sometimes 4x points. Purchase 10 Chick-fil-A $10 cards ($100 spent) and get 400 points; $10 at Chick-fil-A buys two sandwiches and a large waffle fry; the food is good and hot.
April, as it turned out, was a pretty good month for us and HT #496. We might have saved $26 buying groceries elsewhere but HT #496 is close. And paying just 49.9-cents per gallon for gas is self-satisfying and offers interesting memories of my college days.
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