The lowest gas price you’ll ever see, and other decimal mistakes

I almost caused an accident when I saw this gas price today:

To my dismay, it turned out the station was undergoing maintenance, and the attendant apparently chose this price on purpose. What a lousy way to indicate a gas station is closed…Blatant false advertising I say!

The incident did remind me of a story where my friend went to McDonald’s. A few years ago, he saw a promotional sign outside of the store that read: “Limited time offer: 0.99 ¢ Big Mac”. Willing to try his luck, he went to the store and ordered 3 Big Macs. He then threw down a nickel on the counter and proudly said, “Keep the change.” The cashier and manager did not find this amusing and wouldn’t honor the price, and they seemed unwilling to admit that “0.99 cents” is not the same as “0.99 dollars.”

Verizon seems to suffer from the same conversion problem, as you can hear in this hilarious customer call. Check out his blog for the whole story.