To BP or not to BP? That is the question.

Let’s play make believe.

Imagine for a minute that you are a gas station owner — let’s just say that you’re located in a town north of Boston and that you had owned and run a Getty station for almost twenty years when a corporate deal that didn’t seem like a big deal at the time converted your Getty station to a BP station. It’s just a name, right? No one will care, you told yourself.

Just for the hell of it, let’s say your name is Jim Daaboul. And let’s say that this week is when the change-over to BP is occurring — a switch that’s been in the works for almost two years –at your gas station. What do you think you would be feeling as the BP signs were hoisted over your gas station amidst the coverage of BP’s two-month old, and ongoing, disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?

I’m guessing you’d be thinking something along the lines of this: “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuccccccccccccccccccccckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk.”

Okay, now stop the pretending — what are you, five years old!? No need to pretend, anyway — Jim Daaboul is a real person! He owns a gas station in my town; you can read the local paper’s story here. Prior to reading his story I had been a de facto participant in the BP boycott. (It was de facto in that I never really patronized BP to begin with. So, Take that, BP! I am going to continue to not go to your gas station! Powerful stuff.)

The other reason I haven’t been fully on board with the boycott is that if I am voting against BP, then I feel like I am voting for whichever company I go to instead. So, please tell me, which oil company is the Good Guy? Have you done all your research and do you feel confident with your vote?

And, lastly, without removing any of the enormous and deserved blame on BP, I would also like to state the obvious, which is that oil companies exist because we as a nation use a royal ass-load of oil. So, it’s nice that we have a Bad Guy now — and they are definitely the Bad Guy! — but let’s just recognize that it’s a complicated situation. ‘Lotta ins, ‘lotta outs.

Meanwhile, north of Boston, there’s this guy, Jim. In the article Jim says,”I’m just a small guy. Customers need to look at the service, not the sign.” He also points out that BP supplies oil to other big-name companies, too. So you could be patronizing a Mobil station and filling your tank with BP fuel.

So what’s a girl like me, who likes to do the right thing, to do? This gas station is about 1/2 mile from my house. I drove by yesterday, the day this story was published, and I looked over to see a man (I’m guessing it was Jim) pumping gas; oddly, he looked up and we made and held eye contact as I drove by. It didn’t feel accidental. It felt like he was standing out there, at his shiny new BP station, and purposely looking at the drivers of passing cars, just waiting for someone to yell something obscene or to tell him that he should be ashamed.

I didn’t honk my horn or yell, “BP kills birds and ruins lives!” (Both of which is true.) But I also didn’t yell, “I support you, Jim!” And I didn’t stop to get gas, either. I looked away.

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