In October 1973 the oil shortage hit suddenly and without much warning. The oil company informed us that our allocation — the quantity of gas we were permitted to purchase — had been cut to a fraction of our normal supply, based on our past purchase history. From the first day, cars began lining up as soon as we opened, and within 2 hours we had sold what would normally have lasted a full day.

The lines stretched for a mile down Route 9. People arrived hours before we opened and waited in their cars. Some had been waiting since before dawn. By 8AM the line wrapped around the block and stretched back past the neighboring businesses. Most stations in the area were in the same situation, so there was nowhere else to go.

I needed a system. Serving cars in the order they arrived was creating chaos. People were cutting in line, blocking traffic, getting into arguments. I sat down that evening and designed an appointment system.

Starting the next morning, I sent my attendants down the line early and wrote down license plate numbers and time slots. Each car was assigned a specific 15-minute window to come in for gas. We gave everyone a card with their appointment time. Then I sent them away. Come back at your time, we told them. The line disappeared. The street cleared. Our neighbors were relieved.

The system worked perfectly. Cars arrived on time, got their gas, and left. We moved through the list efficiently, there was no waiting, no arguments, no chaos. Our customers appreciated being treated with respect rather than being left to sit in a line for hours.

After about 3 weeks, a state official came to the station and informed me that the appointment system was illegal. The state had enacted emergency regulations requiring stations to serve customers strictly on a first-come, first-served basis. My system, however orderly and sensible, violated those regulations. I had to stop.

I never understood why. The first-come, first-served rule created exactly the chaos the regulations should have been trying to prevent. But it was the law, and I complied.

The shortage lasted several months. During that period the station was essentially operating as a gas distribution point rather than a business, since we were selling gas at regulated prices with no profit margin to speak of. The car repair side kept us solvent. When the shortage ended and normal supply resumed, we had a list of several hundred loyal customers who remembered how we had treated them during a stressful time.