get outta here

i'm watching the evening news
which as you might guess is a bad thing for myself and
both my loyal readers

i still refer to the news reflexively as 'peter jennings'
even though he's gone
it's just what i was brought up on
charlie gibson is no peter jennings

naturally the lead story on the news today is memorial day traffic
and how it's so daunting to travel this weekend because of the
ridiculous cost of gas

don't get me wrong
i drove down 128 today and saw it say
$3.97
and i know it's only a matter of time until it crosses that much-feared
threshold

but the whole
oh shit
let's cancel our vacation
thing
is just dumb

let's say for instance i was road-tripping to maine this weekend
actually that sounds fun
of course it's probably a bit late to get a campsite at acadia
at any rate
that's a 570-mile round trip
or at my car's rate of consumption
19 gallons of gas
at $3.89 let's say
or a grand total of $74
now that trip would have been a no-brainer with $2.99 gas
[why aren't i buying another dodge?]
a mere $57
are we really going to tell the kids we're staying home over $17

of course we're not
it's not the vacations that are breaking us
it's the forty miles a day we commute on average

vacations and exploring this great and huge country of ours are the
best reasons to have a car
we've got to rethink the 250 days a year we go to work
not the 100 or so we don't

and sure
that $17 becomes $34 or $50 if you drive a big sport utility vehicle
but in that case
you did it to yourself