Dear OPEC Nations: I Need Cheaper Gas!

I really like Einstein’s definition of insanity: “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

I’m talking about gasoline, and more specifically, gasoline prices. Have you seen how high the cost of gas has jumped over the past month?

ABC World News reports oil has hit a high of $106.95 a barrel, as hostilities continue in Libya. Guess what else? California has the most expensive state average at $3.90 a gallon (as I write this—could be even higher by the time you read it).

To get our nation’s economy rolling again, Americans were highly encouraged to buy a new car. Remember “Cash for Clunkers?”

Well, we didn’t participate in that program, but when our 1998 Honda Civic required $1,200 to fix major problems, we did take advantage of some great deals and low prices. We bought a shiny new car.

It gave us more room for our growing family and was more reliable than our older car. Hey, we were even helping the economy.

We knew the value of our new car dropped substantially the moment we drove it off the lot, but we also knew that we tend to keep our cars for a long time. We were the original owners on the Honda Civic, and drove it for 13 years, so we weren’t worried.

We drove our new Honda Pilot everywhere, even to Utah for our family vacation last summer. It was much cheaper than flying and much less hassle. Besides, every family has to take a long road trip, so they can look back and remember how painful it was, sitting in the car for hours on end.

All was going pretty well with our new car until the people of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya decided to overthrow their countries’ dictators. It seems to me, the slightly informed but not really knowledgeable average American, that every time there is turmoil in the Middle East, you can bet that gasoline prices will skyrocket. I also seem to recall that we’ve been here before.

I was 12 years old in 1979, and I wanted to go to the beach with my friends. I asked my mother to drive us, but she said there was no gasoline in our LTD II Station Wagon because it wasn’t our day to go to the gas station.

It was an even day on the calendar and we could only go get gas on odd days. My mother said there was a gasoline crisis and we all had to do our part, so no day at the beach with my friends.

I know a lot of the world's oil in the world is in your hands, OPEC. We are at your mercy because we have built our lives on the stuff. Can you please keep the price down, even in the middle of revolutions? 

We need to we get to work without having to get a loan from the bank to fill our gas tanks. (By the way, the banks aren’t really loaning any money because of the financial meltdown.) Is that too much to ask?

Well, I can’t hold my breath and wait for an answer. Until things settle down in Libya, we won’t be going anywhere.