UnNews:Town runs off of the Placebo Effect

This article is part of UnNews, your source for up-to-the-picosecond misinformation.

26 August 2009

All of the vehicles in the small town of Dedham, Iowa were recently found to running completely off of the placebo effect. Drivers, unaware that the local gas station had closed, continued to pump what they thought was gas into their vehicles and drove on nothing but air under the assumption that their gas meters had merely broken.

Roy's Gas Station/Cafe in its prime. According to eye-witness reports, the building looked much the same as does in this photograph when it closed.

Apparently Roy's Gas Station/Cafe, experiencing financial problems, had closed down for fear of bankruptcy sometime in early July. Roy himself remarks "I must've plum forgot to turn off the pumps, but after seeing people buyin' up the air in my tanks with their credit cards, I just decided to leave well enough alone."

It wasn't until Larry King came to town that the people of Dedham were shaken from their dreamlike mode of transportation. King, lost in the Iowa countryside, arrived in Dedham almost completely out of water, gas, and charisma. Spying Roy's Gas Station/Cafe, he drove into the lot, but upon finding that there was no gas whatsoever coming from his pump, King declared the gas station, Iowa, and existence in general all to be folly. A few bystanders overheard the outburst and the placebo effect they had been experiencing immediately ceased. Word spread and soon the entire town became aware that it was out of gas, causing several minor car accidents in the process.

Dedham, Iowa is once again running off of gasoline, but the experience has prompted many to pursue this strange occurrence further. Roy, of Roy's Gas Station/Cafe, is already making plans to implement the placebo effect as an alternative fuel source and is currently looking for government funding.