I'd like change for a penny, please.

As a child (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) I remember the local gas station selling petrol for 29 cents a gallon. Actually, it was 29.9 cents per gallon, which is where this little rant is going.

Now that gasoline costs more than crack, I think it's time to do away with the point nine cents at the end of the price. Here's a little exercise for you to try the next time you're drunk and/or pissed off:

Go to your local filling station and ask for a gallon of gasoline. When you pay for it, ask for your point one cent change. Watch and learn.

I know the psychology of the 99-cents at the end of every price. $1.99, $5.99 ... it makes you think it's a dollar less than you're actually paying. But that's OK, if you're stupid enough to think that $5.99 isn't six dollars, you deserve to be ripped off. At least the penny is an actual unit of measure. I haven't seen a Point Nine-cent piece, unless the mint is making sets and keeping it to themselves.

Do you think that we're really getting the point one-cent at the end of the road? No. It's priced into the per-gallon cost. If gasoline is advertised as $3.60 and nine-tenths, guess what? You're paying $3.61. I can't imagine a gas pump is calibrated well enough to give us a penny for every ten gallons pumped.

Round it up and finish screwing us. Putting it in 99-percent of the way just makes it more painful when you take it out.

This site on Arizona gas prices argues that the precision of nine-tenths gives motorists a "false sense of accuracy" over their purchase. It goes on to state that this method of pricing "requires that almost all purchases be rounded to the nearest whole cent," which benefits oil companies.
Dr. James Madachy believes it's primarily a marketing thing ("It looks cheaper"), but acknowledges charging nine-tenths of a cent can be unfair to the consumer. According to Madachy, the state of Iowa "outlawed the practice for four years during the 1980s." However, the movement (if you can call it that) didn't have much success.

Then, there's this that shows how those wacky Canadians do things.

Or this.

This came from Chevron:

A dealer does not have to use $.009 in his pricing. Historically however, the $.009 has been used as a marketing tool by many dealers. For example, rather than increase the retail price to the next whole 1.0 cent, a price of $1.59.9 may be more attractive to the price-conscious customer than the $1.60.0.

Sure. I'm a price-conscious consumer. I relish the 18 cents I save with every fill-up. Oh wait, it actually goes in Chevron's pocket because they charge to the whole cent. So, I'm screwed twice. Thanks.

Whatever the answer, "because it has always been that way" is an inadequate explanation. I think I abhor it so much because it's another dumbing-down procedure that plays consumers as dopes (which we are sometimes) and I can't stand being thought of as a rube.

I'm already being forced to purchase something that I am told I need. Don't compound the issue by making me feel like I'm getting a bargain in the process.

Aren't you glad I'm around to bring these sorts of things up?

You're welcome.