Let's Drink Tea, Smoke and Buy a Little Gas

I remember the first time I had dealings with gas. I was 8 and my father sent me to the store with a quart Mason jar without the lid and a dime. I walked the half-mile to downtown Blitchton, Ga. All the streets were dirt but one. The only reason it was paved was because it just passed through, headed somewhere else.

I was to get a jar full of gas for the lawn mower. By the time I got back, the jar was half empty. I was wearing the rest of it. Times sure have changed. Today they would take your kids for doing that.

I went into the store and paid my dime. Returning to the pump, I found that the jar would only hold six cents worth. So I went back inside and got four cents worth of penny candy. Those days are gone, and now they seem more like a Twilight Zone episode.

I started driving daily at 14, simply because I needed to. Growing up in Milledgeville, we used to take a spin around the Dairy Queen and then drive all the way out to McDonald's by the mall. We would take a spin around it and then repeat the same circuit about 400 times a night. I did this for two years before I had a license. Back then, you could accomplish this immensely important social requirement for about five bucks a night.

Now, it takes five bucks just to get to the store to buy 50 bucks worth of gas. I know that it takes millions of years to make oil. I know we are going to run out. Still, I also know that the high gas prices are simply about greed. We are a captive audience and have no chance against the corporate greed that constantly takes advantage of us. It makes me ill, to think of the colossal profits being made off us by large companies around the world. Before you start blaming every country where camels are indigenous, realize that many of the oil mongers are here in our own country.

The powers that be are the ones that taught those around the world to exploit Americans in mass years ago. Our industry and government leaders are pulling many of the strings around the world that make us jump and dance. When will it end? Why would it? They jack the price of gas to over five bucks a gallon and then drop it to three so we feel like we are getting a bargain. People then rush out and buy gas-guzzling SUVs to celebrate that drop.

It’s partly caused by our own stupidity. The advertising companies sold us water years ago, and we still buy it. Pet rocks, bottled water and the Republican party are prime examples of what intensive advertising campaigns can accomplish. In a country that has the cleanest water on the planet, we consume millions of bottles of water at more than four bucks a gallon. It’s been proven that it takes three gallons of water to make one gallon of bottled water. People continue to wonder why we are experiencing water shortages. By drinking water, we are consuming ourselves into a crisis that will eventually escalate the price of bottled water and the profits made from it.

What has not been proven is that the bottled water is any better. Still, we keep on buying. In all the countries I have visited there are few where the water does not fill your bowels with parasites that make you deathly ill — ours is one of them. Our water systems are legendary all over the world. Bottled water was designed for those other countries. What happened? Most bottled water is right out of some municipal water supply, and it says so on the label. I don’t know about you, but water from the municipal water supply of Cleveland, Ohio, does not instill comfort in my mind. Why does bottled water have an expiration date? I’m just sayin'.

They have said for years that we need to drink eight large glasses of water a day. If we drink anything else, like tea, coffee or soda, then we need to drink three times the amount of water to counter those drinks. Drinking that much water makes me feel sick. I guess I might live longer, but who wants to feel sick longer than they need to? Recently, studies have proven that you do not need all that water and liquids are all mostly made of water and all count. Drinking anything besides water is now akin to being a smoker and somehow proves your ignorance.

Why are we surprised that the price of gas has finally surpassed the price of water? OK, that’s too crazy to even talk about, proving that even my insanity has limits. I wonder if soon we will be able to go to the store and pump out 10 cents worth of water into a quart Mason jar. The only thing I see missing and possibly the next step is "Made in China" on the labels.