Feeling gouged? Well, it is not your imagination.

I was in Chillicothe Sunday, and gasoline was $2.33 a gallon. When I left Scioto County it was $2.69 a gallon. So Scioto County residents are paying 36 cents more per gallon than a place 50 miles away. If that makes sense to you, then please explain it to me.

I have, over the last several years, heard every explanation there could possibly be as to why gasoline is higher in Scioto County than anywhere else in the state, and yet nothing could possibly explain a 36 cents per gallon difference.

Gasoline now joins oxycodone as being higher priced in Scioto County than elsewhere. That’s why drug dealers come here from Columbus to peddle their pills. They get $1 a milligram here, and a lot less in Columbus.

I don’t know why we are willing to pay more for things in Scioto County than other places in the state, unless it is that we are just gullible.

When I tell people in other parts of the state how much we pay for gasoline here, they at first are shocked, then they laugh, and finally just blow it off as going with the territory.

We all need gasoline, and those pricing it at $2.69 a gallon know that. Maybe what we ought to do is not buy another item from these places. We could go in, pay the gouging price for the gasoline, then not buy the chips, soda, bread, etc., then remind them that we will be buying several other items, but at another kind of store that doesn’t gouge us at the gas pump.

As I have said before, there is a simple formula for how gasoline prices are figured in Scioto County. If the price of oil goes up, the price of gas goes up. If the price of oil goes down, the price of gas goes up.

Remember these people and their way-over-priced gasoline, and give them as little of your money as you possibly can. We have to fight back.

Frank Lewis may be reached at (740) 353-3101 Ext. 232