Are you old enough to remember the days when you could pull up to the pump, fill your tank and then head inside and pay for the fuel? I am. Gasoline was about .50 cents per gallon.

Can you imagine the thievery that would go on today with gasoline prices hovering between $4 and $5 per gallon? I drive an economy car and it still costs me more than $50 to fill my tank. As reported in www.businessinsider.com.

As a counselor for both in-class and online stop theft classes, I follow theft news very carefully. I recently saw a story about a theft of gasoline from a gas station. My first thought was how do you steal gas nowadays?

The incident happened in Roseville, California where 1,000 gallons of gas — worth an estimated $4,500, was stolen. For those of you who have not followed gas prices in California, they have gone up almost 50 cents per gallon in the last week!

The thief pumped the gas before prices jumped this week. How could it not have been an inside job? For those of you who live in California, please explain to me how you could get gasoline without paying first.

The station says the thieves were able to bypass the pump's meter to take as much as they wanted.

The thief came by the station three times in a pickup truck, each time making off with about 300 gallons.

We all are ticked off by high gasoline prices but stealing it is not the answer. It is not the station owners gauging the public but the oil companies.