Due to various Federal Privacy Acts, I cannot divulge details, but suffice it to say that I spent the better part of yesterday morning in a hospital waiting room where I was subjected to unavoidable big screen CNN coverage. Outside of developing a crush on the morning's anchor, whose name I never did catch and whose dress had a weird chest line cut, I cannot say that watching the same "news" over and over again was that enlightening. However, with all the repetitiveness of the news, I finally reached my personal tipping point with "the Lundberg survey."
You know the Lundberg survey, don't you? That seemingly ubiquitous report about gasoline prices across the USA? Well, in this age of wholesale media redundancy, the Lundberg survey seems to be the only reliable source on gasoline prices, and it is run by that dashing driver above, Ms. Trilby Lundberg (which I'm sure can't be her real name; it sounds more like the name of a character in one of Woody Allen's late 70s early 80s movies, probably played by the estimable Dianne Wiest or the equally estimable Lanie Kazan). Now up until yesterday, whenever I considered Trilby Lundberg, which wasn't much, my initial reaction was Pshaw! What kind of a (pre)occupation is that, what kind of a (get a) lifestyle choice is that, to survey gasoline prices? We all drive in this country and most of us live in or around cities where in any kind of a commute or trip to the convenience store one easily passes a dozen gas stations, so info on gas prices is not exactly insiders' dope. And it's not as if you can mail order or e-tail your next tank of gas; you're stuck having to get gas where you are. And really, what the hell do you ultimately care where your city ranks in the national average? Can you do anything about it? And what good does knowing, every week, where the lowest and highest gas prices are in the country? Do you text a friend in most expensive Detroit and say, "LOL u r gettin scrwd @ da pump, dude!" (as if there aren't five dozen better reasons to hammer someone for living in Detroit)? I mean what can be involved in Trilby's "survey"? Call up a few random gas stations around the country, ask what the big sign out front says today, add 'em up and divide and there's your survey. Fifteen minutes work, max. And then, as if all this superfluous info isn't enough, Trilby has to explain why the price of gas has risen or fallen a few pennies since last week. And 99% of the time it's due to supply/demand issues, which might sound Keynesian but is really balderdash, no? We're hostages to our cars/gasoline--don't tell me all of a sudden people are saying no to gas like a good old e coli scare makes us say no to squash for a month or two.
So, up until yesterday morning my regard for Trilby Lundberg was pretty low, bottom of the barrel, so to speak. But then, after seeing and hearing Trilby get regular airtime on CNN every half hour after every half hour, I have gained a much deeper, more profound respect for the lady. What chutzpah. To be able to peddle/flog (now there's a new word that should reach ubiquity in this crass commercialist, media-soaked world: peddleflog) such an inane and useless "service" to the point of "expert" status (I mean is there anybody else we trust with gas price info other than Trilby?) makes Trilby an American heroine in the mold of Ripley, Barnum, Gatsby, and Kiper Jr. Give the woman a Congressional Medal of Hucksterism immediately.
So, in the sincerest form of imitation being the sincerest form of flattery, I am announcing that I will be following in Trilby's gargantuan trailblazing footsteps, minus the, um, pumps I'm sure she sports. At first I thought I'd make myself the nation's expert on beer prices ("Yeah, with the NFL lockout, look for demand to plunge; by Thanksgiving, cases of PBR should be had for a buck in most places, a buck fifty in Detroit"), but that just sounds a little too cliched and adolescent. Besides, beer drinking, outside of Wisconsin, is not necessarily as ubiquitous as gas guzzling. Then, light bulb! TP. Toilet paper! Everyone uses it, has to use it, even moreso than gas. With rain forests disappearing, and all the economic, climate, and political upheavals around the world surely contributing to an increase in individual gastric disturbances, I'm thinking the TP market is in for some wide price fluctuations. So I've been making some calls to TP proprietors here and elsewhere (Detroit, for some strange reason, has great prices on TP) setting up my network for my scientific survey. Give it a month or two and I'm sure you'll be seeing me on CNN regularly, giving my weekly spitoutyourgum TP survey results and making up arcane supply/demand explanations on the spot. Dancing With the Stars won't be far behind. And I'll owe it all to the inspiration that is Trilby.
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