Enough already with the forwarded mass e-mails telling me not to buy gas on May 15th. The thinking is participating in a one day boycott will bring the oil companies "to their knees" and make them lower the price at the pump.
The premise behind all these messages is flawed from the get-go, because consumers' not buying gasoline on one particular day doesn't affect oil companies at all. The "gas out" scheme doesn't call upon people to use less gasoline, but simply to shift their date of purchase and buy gas a day earlier or later than we usually would The very same amount of gasoline is sold either way, so oil companies don't lose any money. If you want to do something about high gas prices, USE LESS GAS.
Whenever I get a mass forwarded e-mail, I check the title line at a site called Snopes first. Virtually every e-mail I check turns out to be an internet hoax, just like the "Don't buy gas on May 15th" one. It's been going around in one form or another since 1999. If you want to see all the past versions of this, click here.
I gently reply to the sender to check with Snopes before filling my in-box with any more trash. Then I get to my real pet peeve. They send these around with a zillion addresses in the To: line, which gives my e-mail address to people I don't know. Stop it! at the least, use the Bcc: line, which stands for blind carbon copy. Putting all your mass mailing friends' addresses there keeps them private from the reader.
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