Word: gas
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...exhausting, this ritual self-interrogation. And then, after all the familiar articles have been written, the cycle starts up again, turning over like the big V-8 in that wasteful sedan we never sold. Gas prices start sliding down again and people go back to driving as they've always driven while listening to the same music on their stereos and tuning out the same discouraging news about global warming, Middle East politics and bumper-to-bumper traffic on the interstates. Crank the Pearl...
Perhaps that's why, this time, I won't be disappointed if gas prices stay uncomfortably high. Then I might finally be able to adapt to them. I might relinquish, at last, my selfish fantasy of buying a 300-h.p. sports sedan that uses only premium. I might break myself of the obsessive road-trip habit that caused me to put over 90,000 miles on a new SUV in just the past two years. I might trade in the SUV for a mountain bike and lower my blood pressure as a wholesome side effect...
...because what shoots up seems always to drift back down, I postpone such long-term decisions for quick fixes that allow me to linger in denial. My best trick so far is to set a dollar limit every time I open my gas cap. The idea is always to spend the same amount--$50, say--and drive as far as I can on what it buys me, even if it's not as far as yesterday. That gambit works well for a week or two, I find, but then it gradually stops working because of the same sort of sloppy...
...second best trick, which I'm trying at the moment, is to make room for gas in my general household budget by living as if it were 10 years ago, when fuel was relatively inexpensive and my personal consumption habits were too. I drank my water from the tap back then, not from bottles brought on ships from Iceland, and I let my cell phone ring however it wanted to rather than paying for special tones. Perhaps by returning to older, simpler ways I'll find the extra 11 bucks I need now to fill my tank past the three...
...Gas prices are high, the Fed raised interest rates again, but what got Americans really outraged last week was the departure of rocker CHRIS DAUGHTRY, 26, from the fifth season of American Idol. Fans were infuriated, threatening to boycott the show and demanding a vote recount. Judges were dumbfounded. And Daughtry was the most shocked of all, saying that his ouster "doesn't make sense logically." Although he didn't make the cut on Idol, Daughtry has already been fielding job offers, including the front-man gig for the band Fuel. Meanwhile, bald guys lost their best hope...