You’d be amazed how many people learn the hard way that they first need to head to a separate store to buy a gas container, then head to the gas station. Most places could care less about keeping a container on premises because it is both a rare situation these days, and storage is at a premium in most stores. If you saw the back room or manager’s office, you would see the floor-to-ceiling stacks of inventory (usually drinks or tobacco products).
I can’t remember the name of the book now, but in high school we read a ‘true’ story of child abuse. I’m sure it was edited to both tone down and turn up certain elements, but it was pretty much a brutal shock to people who are mostly from decent families that love them. Whether the kids were rich, poor, or middle class in my school, just about everyone there could at least return home to parents that didn’t commit those horrors.
I remember the diapers, the exposure to the elements, and the way the other children were pitted against the abused kid, and honestly? It was the emotional abuse that was the worst to read.