Oil’s well that ends Well…

I got a letter from a Sr. Vice President of BP the other day. I wouldn’t know Kevin Phelan if I tripped over him in a puddle of crude oil but he seems to know me. He writes my name in the letter several times and has my address correct, something even close relatives have some trouble doing.

Now I didn’t fall off the gasoline truck yesterday. I know that the only reason that Kev (I feel comfortable calling him that-he did write ME after all) is writing is because I have a BP credit card. Before the environmental wackos as Rush Limbaugh calls you, get on my case let me explain.

I have had this credit card longer than most readers of this deathless prose have been alive, in fact for nearly thirty years. I got it when BP was called Amoco and long before their stinking oil well befouled the coastline of America. So that I have it is no statement of my environmental consciousness. That I KEEP it is. More in a moment.

I not naïve enough to think that this is any more or less than a form letter. Probably one of hundreds of thousands sent to credit card holders. It’s a nice letter that details all the stuff that BP is doing to set things right on the Gulf of Mexico. 39,000 people working to fix things. $20 billion to pay off claims. 1400 miles of boom to keep the nasty crude from the coastline. It’s all pretty impressive.

My new buddy Kev also thanks me for my support. He says when I buy their gas I am doing a good thing for men, women and families who live right here in NEPA. I am keeping the card. I don’t use it for gas. I use it for travel and big expenses and always pay off the balance immediately. Every so often they send me a free card for BP gas. So it is actually costing them money to have me as a customer. They have to do all the paperwork and I get to use their money, thirty days at least, for free.

The nice letter is signed “Sincerely” Kevin Phelan. Since I really don’t know Kevin at all I can’t say if he is sincere or not. I do know one thing. No place in the rather lengthy letter does he say that he or anyone in BP is sorry for fracking up the ocean, the coastline and not a few pelicans and seagulls. I rather doubt a Senior Vice President of BP gives a rat’s behind about birds. Why not write him and ask him? Email me and I’ll give you his address.