A small thought on the changing value of things

When I was in college I worked one summer at a gas station. The 11pm to 7am shift at Drakes Shell Station in St. Petersburg, Florida. It was a long time ago and in an era when all night gas stations were fairly rare. In the suburbs of St. Pete, near the Snell Isle and Pinellas Park areas, this was the only place to get gas after midnight.

It was quite an adventure, a big part of growing up. From midnight to dawn I was one of the lords of the strip, 4th street. I knew the regular lineup of night people, cops, liquor store owners, motorcycle gang members, dj's, newspaper delivery people. I also served a regular string of folks who found themselves low on gas and low on cash after a late night adventure in Tampa. I handled a lot of requests for small sales of a gallon or two, enough to get them home.

One night a guy pulled up and begged for gas. He was broke. He promised to pay me back if I would just give him a couple of dollars worth. I'd learned the hard way not to do that and told him no. So he opened his trunk, which was full of tools. He offered me any tool in his trunk in exchange for $2 worth of gas. The deal was sealed.

I pointed to the lug wrench you see here. I could tell he was hoping I wouldn't see it, but he reluctantly handed it over. It was worth ten or fifteen dollars at the time, perhaps a little more today.

I realized then, and now, how emotion and circumstances can change our view of the value of things. Put a guy in desperate circumstances and he'll let possessions go for a fraction of their worth. Had he stopped and thought for a few minutes there might have been a better way out of his situation. When I saw the look on his face I knew that I never wanted to be in his situation. Here he was, a grown man face to face with a teenage kid at 3am, humiliated and knowing the kid holds all the cards. Of course I only have my side of the story and in fairness I don't know what difference that gas made in his life. He didn't dicker. He needed it bad. If it kept him from getting fired, or missing some important meeting, maybe he had the better end of the deal.

I have kept the lug wrench and carried it with me from city to city. At least once a month I see it as I piddle around the garage. It reminds me in a little way of the mistakes that come from panic and the opportunities that can come to those on the flip side of the trade. Over the past year during the market meltdown, I thought about this episode often. Particularly as people who bought GE at 30 a couple of years ago dumped it when it fell below 10. Same thing with US Steel, which fell from 190 to 19, and so on with almost every publicly traded US company. Happens all the time, almost every day, to someone, somewhere. Common stocks, homes, a racehorse, a rare coin, a fine tool. One day we are thinking clearly and rationally. The next we are making decisions any normal teenager would know to avoid. I remembered the lug wrench as markets collapsed earlier this year and determined I would again be the kid with 2 bucks, not the man who was scared and desperate for cash.

One of these days I suppose I'll pass the lug wrench on to one of my kids, or grandkids, along with more details on this story. The man who traded for the lugwrench has been on my mind a fair amount over the years. He's in his 70's or 80's now, if still alive. He taught me an important lesson, I hope I taught him one.