T his weekend, I went to my neighborhood Whole Foods to rumage the hot bar and see if there was anything worthwhile; moderately edible. I had just finished running seven miles. It was the path of least resistance to securing susenate; to usher myself past these automatic doors that sit a block away from where I was house-sitting at the time.
I had grown familiar with purchasing an egg sandwich — nothing particularly special, merely overcooked avian ovums beneath a layer of coagulated cheese, all placed on a dry English muffin — after such fits of fleeting athleticism, surrendering to its mediocrity, washing down the consumable ambivalence with an on-sale iced coffee. Normally, this bit of satiated laziness costs, more or less, $6 or $7 dollars.
But not this time — far from it. My grand total for this prosaic luxury? $9. Why? The fucking, barely edible egg sandwich, which normally is priced at $4, went up to $6… for seemingly no reason. Overnight.
I huffed. Brows bunched, chest clamped. I swiped my card. My feet went one in front of the other, making their way a few hundred feet to my temporary residence.
After unwrapping the tinfoil enveloping said overpriced breakfast sandwich, I opened my laptop to check the day’s news. And it was then — with tacky cheddar cheese gluing my molars — I learned of a gas station in Mendocino, California charging $9.60 a gallon. Or roughly the same amount of money I had just relinquished for my breakfast.
L ocated on the picturesque Northern California Coastline, Mendocino is a famously expensive small town in the region. This is due partly because access to the 91,000-resident county is somewhat difficult. It’s a town largely built on independently-owned businesses (which is fantastic). In recent years, it’s experienced a rise in regional and out-of-state tourism — allowing businesses the chance to hold financially gain by upselling products, be them essential or otherwise, and capitalize on demand.
Case in point: Schlafer’s Auto Body & Repair at 4490 Main Street, which currently sells a single gallon of regular, unleaded fuel for $9.60. That’s over $3 more than the going average for run-of-the-pump gasoline in California, FYI. But, alas, the high digital price tag isn’t (entirely) the store owner’s fault.
It’s a sign of the times.
G as prices have surged in the last several months in California, which still boasts the highest gas prices anywhere in the nation. Accumulated inflation since 2020 has increased the average cost of goods by more than 10%. The war in Ukraine continues to rage on — simultaneously omitting Russian oil from most of the international market. California also has certain carbon-specific taxes that are implemented under the state’s strict environmental regulations (that are very, very [very] much needed amid the climate crisis).
Owner Judy Schlafer had recently told SFGate that she needed to raise her prices to these amounts to cover high overhead costs — “I’m going to be lucky if I make the year with all the fees, the regulation, the payroll fees” — and make up for the fact that she doesn’t sell any food or drink products at the station.
Unfortunately, there’s no sign of gas prices and inflation rates dipping anytime soon. In fact, recent data available through the United States’s GDP tracker hints that they were on the brink of a reception, which would make all of the financial despondencies mentioned above even worse.
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Though, if Schlafer does choose to sell hot foods at her quaint shop someday, all I ask is that no single egg sandwich cost more than $7.
Celebrating the free-wheeling spirit of the Bay Area — one sentence at a time.
SF transplant, coffee shop frequent; tiny living enthusiast. iPhone hasn’t been off silent mode in nine or so years. Editor of The Bold Italic.