Gasoline Prices Revisited

Finally, heading to the filling station with my truck is not a painful visit.  At last, deciding to take a trip to a specialty store on the other side of the city is not a chore.  Delightedly, we can get out of our snowbound house and do a short adventure without worrying about how the mileage will impact our weekly budget.

Yes, the headlines for the daily news is no longer the soaring gasoline prices.  When it is convenient to fill up with gasoline, I don’t have to strategize my route to include the station with the cheapest gas.  And taking out a second mortagage just to buy gas is no longer a financial threat.

For a while I dropped all extra expenses in order to offset the weekly gasoline bill.  Bringing brown bag lunches to work, planning days to ride my motorcycle, and even authorizing a four day work week for the office to help eveyone conserve fuel expenses is no longer a part of my daily oversight.

When I drive into a station I can leave again with a smile.  Instead of just surviving on rationing of expenses for that day, I can now direct my cash in more productive and eternal pursuits.  Helping others rather just trying to make it to the next paycheck adds to the cheer of the season.

I have especially noticed that when I’m filling up at the local station it is easier.  The amount of time that it takes to fill up is the same.  But, rounding off the price to the nearest nickel is so much easier now that the prices are lower.

When the price was $4 per gallon, the dial spun so quickly that it was difficult to stop on a nickel.  No matter how softly I squeezed the pump trigger it wasn’t calibrated for such minuscule measures.  Now, I can land on a rounded up number even while pumping at full speed.

So far I haven’t heard much talk about who to thank for these comfortable prices.  When everyone was angry, President Bush was taking all of the blame.  Even our state governor wasn’t shouldering any responsibilty back then.

We people are peculiar.  When times are tough we look for someone to blame.  Collective complaining is an easy party to join.  When those tough times drop off, maybe we should be consistent and give some credit to where we discredited before?

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