When will it be $4 a gallon?

In Business

By Elizabeth Gabriel

(Updated: Friday, April 25, 2008, 5:02 PM)

You know how you sit in a scary movie and that cello music starts playing -- like the DA da DA da DA da theme in "Jaws" -- and you figure something icky or frightening is coming? You cover up your eyes, but you just have to look. And as the music hits its crescendo, you peek through your fingers and there it is on screen, all bloody and gory and slimy but not quite as bad as you thought it would be. That's because the anticipation was worse than the actual event.

You know $4 is coming. It is probably here as you read this. Are you going to stop driving? Trade in your F350 pickup for an electric car that may or may not have enough oomph to get up the driveway? Unlikely.

So just suck it up to the degree that your gas guzzler is sucking up the oil, pay the price and quit complaining.

Here are the results of this week's survey -- minus Coarsegold Valero (the phone jockey said he no longer discloses prices over the phone).

Bass Lake Shell, $3.99 (last week, $3.89); Oakhurst Chevron, $3.89 ($3.85); Coarsegold Kwik Serv, $3.85 ($3.73); Coarsegold Shell, $3.89 ($3.77); Bootjack Market, $3.89 ($3.79); Pioneer Texaco in Mariposa, $3.89 ($3.79); $3.71 ($3.64.