The Pierce County community of Burnett sits in the foothills of Mt. Rainier, far from the high seas. But the pirate flag flies high above the Chevron station.

The owners of the Burnett store and gas station say they feel like they are being held captive by pirates. They are not the type who plundered the high seas, but the type, they say, who are plundering the highways.

"Because we feel the gas companies and oil companies are pirating our country," said Gas station owner Daillene Argo. "It's just pirating."

Argo says she knows this isn't going to make Chevron happy. And that's the idea. She says her family business is getting blamed for the high price of gas though they make little profit.

The way the profit structure works now, the owners of this place say they make as much profit on this one corn dog as they do on a tank of gas. On a 10-gallon tank of gas, the station gets about 57 cents of the $30 charge. That’s after the bank takes out up to 3.5% when customers use bankcards.

That profit is about what they get for the corndog.

But fewer people are buying food because all of their money goes to gas.

"If we lose a corndog sale, we've lost what makes our money, because the people need to buy the gas and it's just getting out of hand," Argo said.

So she's flying the flag.

"I feel sorry for the gas station people too," said customer Sandra Marsh. "Because they're getting the raw deal because we think it's their fault and it's not."

The owners here also say that since there's no competing station across the street, the gas company jacks the price up another 10 cents a gallon.

The Argos worried the pirate flag would offend some folks, but they're getting nothing but support.

"I think it's great and I hope it gets some results," said customer Val Hanvold. "I don't know if this will do it, but if everybody did it maybe they'd listen to us."

The people here say somebody needs to listen before they're forced to take down the pirate flag and hoist the white flag of surrender and sell the business.