To Combat Gas Prices, Students turn Lunch Food into Fuel

As gas prices remain high in the Chicago area and nationwide, many students who drive to Mount Carmel have been struggling to pay for their gas. Students such as Luke Asselborn have been searching for different ways to fill their gas tanks, even with slightly shady schemes. Many of the students have even been caught siphoning gas from teachers’ cars. 

“They’re the ones with the money,” said sophomore Matthew Doyle. “We can’t even afford to buy it ourselves. It’s a scam.”

This mindset is common among the students at Mt. Carmel, who are afraid of the administration and are frustrated by the lack of help provided to them for transportation. When senior Josh Kroll was forced to walk on the Dan Ryan recently because of an empty gas tank, he was severely punished by the administration for promoting dangerous behavior. Kroll argued that he simply needed to get to school. His peers agreed with him--though it was dangerous, taking another tardy and getting a detention was just not worth it. 

These students have asked many of their peers and the staff at Mount Carmel to try and come up with alternative solutions for their problems. The top idea is a way to turn the food in the cafeteria into gasoline because of its “gaseous qualities, ” according to Tasi Koutsis, a longtime school lunch buyer.  He says that he has often found problems with his digestive system between three and four hours after his lunch period. After he brought this up with Mrs. Emma Norise of the Medical Enrichment Club, she determined gas to be the main issue with their bowels. The student drivers deduced they could pour lunch items into their gas tank as an alternative to very expensive gasoline. 

Kroll bought every item on the lunch menu over the course of several days to determine which combination would most efficiently create a large amount of gas. After this, he took the chicken tender, fries, cookie, and Jarritos meal out to the parking lot to test his results. He poured it into the gas tank, and his fellow driver Evan Wiersema asked, “It’s still gas, right?” However, both were disappointed when Kroll’s car not only failed to start, but also started to make strange noises. 

“[The Jeep] must be constipated,” Kroll commented.  

Kroll and other students did mention, however, that even though gasoline prices might be high, the cost of paying for gas in the lunch line as well as regular lunch might just match the inflated cost. They often have to pay nearly 10 dollars a day for just their own food, much less the extra 10 a day it would cost to use lunch food once the process is hammered out. Doyle simply responded "It’s a scam” again when asked for an in depth analysis of the lunch line situation.