Like a clock... tick tick tick...

One of the reasons I'm frothing at the bit to move from our current bucolic homestead to the hustle-bustle of downtown Missoula is gas. It cost me almost $50 to fill up yesterday, and I drive a Subaru. A Subaru - you know a little grocery-getter with tiny wheels and a little baby gas tank. My first Subaru, Little Eddie, drove me around Portland for five years, and fill-ups were about $20. I could get anywhere for a week on twenty bucks. Now a gallon of gas costs more than a gallon of milk, and instead of driving the baby around to put him to sleep, the sub-conscious sound of burning money forces me to take him home and carry him around for a half hour until my forearms are asleep and my back aches. And sometimes, in addition to that crackle of burning money, sometimes my mind hears the rumble of tanks and crying wounded people. I make little scales with my hands and say, hmmm, drive up the road a couple miles to make my back not hurt a little versus a couple dead Middle Easterners. I'd like to see that analogy on the SATs.

So, I decided early-on, when I first noticed the gas prices on our corner store ticking up like the seconds on a digital clock that I would never complain about the price of gas. Because, really, it's our own damn fault. And you know what I mean. We're guzzlers. We've built our great country on the foundation that we should all be able to live wherever we want and one or two gigantic cars should be in the driveway, having arrived there on a clean and nicely paved freeway. It's wonderful, isn't it? Having the freedom to hop into your own personal herculean vehicle to drive six blocks to get some brickettes? Now that's democracy! What I will complain about is the ignorant segment that demands lower gas prices as they sit idling in rush-hour traffic in their air-conditioned Suburbans and Land Cruisers. It's like parents that send their kids to expensive private schools, then balk at the cost of the blue collared shirts they're supposed to wear. A twenty-five dollar shirt versus a 25,000 dollar-a-year tuition. Huh.


Our move to downtown Missoula will save me approximately 20 gallons a week, what with trips to pre-school, Target, the park, Liquid Planet, couple more times to Target, and friends' houses. And then tack on another 25 for Jim and maybe another 15 for my lovely friends and babysitters that have to drive out to see us. Sixty gallons a week, round up to 3500 gallons a year, which brings us to over Ten Thousand Dollars a year. You see what I mean? That is something. That's ten grand out of the pockets of oil execs and other people that don't need it. And maybe, if a few of us move back into town, it'll add up, and eventually oil exploration in the ANWAR and taking over foreign oil supplies won't be quit as much fun. Sure, it's completely and totally Pollyanna to think this way. It could never happen that way. I mean, right? It couldn't, right? A few conscientious people could never make a difference, could they? Even if that few turned into thousands?

What can you do to save a couple gallons?