Question for current/former convenience store workers

[Giggle Goose]

What's the smallest amount of gas anyone has ever bought from you?

Like, would you think it was crazy that some chick wanted to put her last $3 into filling up her car just to get down the road, because she didn't want to use her debit card and knew she would be able to buy more gas with whatever tips she made that night....?

The guy didn't give me a look or anything, so I guess this kind of thing is (somewhat) normal?

[MadRocketScientist]

Way back when, I found myself out of gas in Echo, Utah. I was driving a 1982 Chrysler Cordoba with a 318 under the hood and a 26 gallon tank.

Echo is small, very small, and had no ATM, and the one gas station only took cash or local checks, and charged $1.48 a gallon (this was in 1993).

I had $3 in cash, and no local checks.

I put in $3 and I got my pig restarted and drove the 11 miles to the next town that had an ATM.

[edible_hat]

Not counting the guy from head office who comes around and takes 30 cents worth of samples (to make sure there's no contamination or anything in our tanks), I had a guy buy $0.97 worth the other day.

He had 95 cents in change, and because Australia doesn't have 1 and 2 cent coins any more, 97 cents rounds down to 95. If he'd gone to 98 cents it would have rounded up to a dollar.

[Soulstealer]

Not counting the guy from head office who comes around and takes 30 cents worth of samples (to make sure there's no contamination or anything in our tanks), I had a guy buy $0.97 worth the other day.

He had 95 cents in change, and because Australia doesn't have 1 and 2 cent coins any more, 97 cents rounds down to 95. If he'd gone to 98 cents it would have rounded up to a dollar.

You round down? In Israel they round up even if it's 96 on everything. Every time I go visit the family I hate using cash for this very reason.

[edible_hat]

We round to the nearest 5 cent increment. So 1 and 2 cents rounds down, 3 and 4 up, 6 and 7 down, 8 and 9 up.

Of course, if you're paying by debit or credit card the rounding doesn't apply, since it's possible to do a once cent transaction on those.

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

I'm sure $5 is fairly common for someone here to pull up and put in their snowmobile, maybe I should ask my friend who manages a convenience store what the least gas anyone has bought from him is

[Becks]

If I remember correctly, it was a dollar and a few cents.

[Racket_Man]

I had one guy come in with a small scooter and put 25 or 30 cents in gas in his tank

[counterjockey]

One of the neighborhood kids put $0.45 into a moped. He said that he'd just put some 2-cycle oil(1) in and the gas would help it mix better, but at $2.89 a gallon (as of this summer) that worked out to about 0.155 gal, which isn't enough to get even mildly biffle dinked(2).

1.) For non-mechanically inclined CSers, a 2-cycle engine burns a mixture of gas and a grade of oil commonly called 2-cycle or outboard oil. They're usually used in chainsaws, mopeds, some outboard motors and the like.

2.) Another term for buzzed. It either came from Doonesbury, Hunter S. Thompson, or possibly both.

[LemonZest]

We round to the nearest 5 cent increment. So 1 and 2 cents rounds down, 3 and 4 up, 6 and 7 down, 8 and 9 up.

And they are all very very nice about explaining that to the tourists off the cruise ships, and understanding that it's a bit different to what some of us are accustomed to

(which is lovely. Not everywhere I've been in port has been as nice.)

LZ

[JustADude]

Smallest I, personally, have seen was a guy buying $0.36 worth of diesel in a gas can. Not sure WHAT he wanted it for, but....

[AKWalMartCartGuy]

if only I had a dollar for every time I found myself needing 36 cents worth of diesel......


I guess he didn't actually need to make it out of his driveway. or possibly he didn't mean to get diesel?

[Rapscallion]

After the fuel strike over here a few years back (I know it made the news in Americaland), the fuel stations had a slew of people buying anywhere from sixty to eighty pence worth of fuel to top up.

Rapscallion

[Becks]

25 or 30 cents

Could that be a winner?

[edible_hat]

if only I had a dollar for every time I found myself needing 36 cents worth of diesel......

you'd get $1.36 of diesel instead?