WATERLOO -- On the day Americans had been exhorted by chain e-mail to boycott the gas pumps to force prices down, Shalee Renner stood beside her car at the Kwik Star on West Ninth Street Tuesday afternoon, pumping $30.01 worth of unleaded into it.

She wasn't aware of the called-for boycott. Had she been, she might have considered it.

"Something's got to be done," Renner said. The price of her gas: $3.10 a gallon. "When's it gonna stop? Five, 10 bucks a gallon?"

Gas prices in the Cedar Valley are at the highest that Jim Lind, owner of Jim Lind BP on Ridgeway Avenue, can remember. The prevailing price, he said, is $3.09. It could have been worse.

"They should have gone higher," Lind said. "From a strictly cash flow/profitability, we should have priced it higher than what we did. But we just couldn't …."

Lind blamed the rise in prices on a temporary shortage as refineries switch over to producing summer blend gasoline, or are partially or completely shut down for a number of reasons; and the stock market, as investors drive the price of crude oil up to make a buck.

Lind figures the reduced refinery capacity accounts for at least 50 cents a gallon of the price of gas.

Jeff Doughty, owner of the 18th Street Conoco in Cedar Falls, also cited increased global demand, and the inability of pipelines to move gasoline fast enough to keep up with demand.

"There was one day here two weeks ago where there wasn't any (pipeline) terminal in Iowa that didn't have any gasline," Doughty said.

To combat these high prices, an e-mail started circulating urging people to not buy any gas on Tuesday. The reasoning was that if enough people didn't buy gas that day, the oil companies would lose so much money they would have to lower prices to bring people back.

Nice idea, but not one that gas station owners expected to have much of an impact.

Apparently, it didn't.

"It's a non-event," Lind said.

Jamie McMahon, owner of the Gilbertville Mini Mart, agreed.

"I don't think we've really seen any difference," McMahon said. "I've had a few people comment on it, that they weren't supposed to get it today, but they needed it."

And therein lies the rub to the reasoning of the gas boycott.

Boycotting gas for one day wouldn't make a difference, Lind said, because people would just buy it the day before or after instead. The oil companies would still get their money, it would just be a question of on what day.

"This is an OK thought, it's an OK issue to do it this way. But the key is overall less consumption," Lind said. "Save a gallon of gas a week. That would make a huge impact, if everyone who drives could save a gallon a week."

Doughty had an idea that could give the boycott teeth: "I think if people really did want to affect prices, they could do it by not buying any gasoline for 3 days, and I think the inventories would build that rapidly that we'd see some cheaper prices."

Until that happens, gas is expensive. Really expensive, by the standards to which Americans have become accustomed.

And that makes life difficult, and trips to the gas station painful, for people like Matthew Youngblut.

Youngblut, 18, has a can redemption center and bake shop in Iowa Falls, stays in Eldora and has family in Waterloo. Tuesday, he put $52 in the almost-empty minivan he was driving, because he was going to Waverly looking for another job.

Why look for a new job?

"Mainly because of gas prices," Youngblut said. And he wants to make enough to buy a house.

Renner, too, feels the pain.

"I put in gas all the time," she said. "A couple of times a week. It's ridiculous."

Renner also is kicking around a solution to her gas budget woes. "I'm thinking about riding my bicycle more.

"It's ridiculous," Renner said of gas prices. "When it goes up, it never seems to come back down."

Lind says that's not true. As refinery capacity catches up to demand, prices should fall, he said.

"What goes up must come down," Lind said, and that goes for gas, too. "It subscribes to gravity, too."

Contact Jeff Wilford at (319) 291-1423 or jeff.wilford@wcfcourier.com.