The Sunday Morning Muse, January 6, 2008

Good Sunday morning. Last night the price at my local gas station, for regular unleaded gas, was $3.19. Two weeks ago it was $2.99. No one really knows the reason for the 20 cent hike. Cold weather? Benazir Bhutto's death? Greedy oil companies? President Bush? More Chinese with cars?

Every newscast, without exception all week kept up the mantra of Gas will hit $4.00 a gallon. It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If they repeat it over and over then it will come true. Just like months ago when 100 dollars a barrel was the mantra. Now it is.

I shouldn't let myself get upset over this, because there are bigger fish to fry with my gas stove, in my kitchen warmed by a gas furnace. My home gas bill last month was $220 dollars. And I live in an apartment! This month was actually cold, so it will be much higher I'm sure. My point in all this: I waste a lot of energy being mad over this stuff. And I can't change any of it. Or so I thought.

It occurred to me this morning that if I lived further south in the warm weather, heating bills wouldn't be a problem. I like very hot weather. I wouldn't spend the money on air-conditioning.... I'd have ceiling fans. And if I could live somewhere that I didn't have to own a car, maybe just walk or ride a bike to work, that would be great. There are millions of people right now, living just like this, who can walk past a gas station, see the $3.19 a gallon sign and barely notice it. I would like to be one of these people someday.

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I'd be mad less of the time.