I’m sitting here in bed paying my bills (through the wonders of technology… and possibly also “science”) and I realized something:

gas is expensive

I took the image at the right almost exactly 4 years ago while on a ski trip up in Tahoe. At the time, I made a post about how ridiculous gas prices were up in the mountains and how they could charge you such exorbitant rates because you were effectively trapped up there. Nowadays, if I saw $2.91 anywhere, I’d jealously barricade myself and my closest friends around the station, only letting people in and out through a gate I fashioned out of an old metal-clad bus. I would then sire (or find) a little boy with a dirty-blond mullet, and teach him to use a metal boomerang (with lethal results). I would also have an Australian accent which I would eventually lose in time to star in a number of successful buddy-cop movies.

But that’s just crazy-talk.

At any rate, paying my bills, I noticed how much my gas company decisions have become equal-opportunity. Chevron, Shell, Mobil, Pilot, Valero, anything… as long as it’s cheap (relatively). Back in the day, I would drive out of my way for my “preferred” gas station (which I think may have been Mobil, for some reason). If gas was only $1.00/gallon why not be selective?

By the way, the argument that gas was just as expensive 20 years ago (on a relative scale) is ludicrous. I was in high school (OK, 15 years ago) with only sporadic jobs and I had no problem buying gas. Now, I’m an adult in the real world making millions of dollars a month and fuel is something that really stings my budget.

Anyway, it would seem that we onlyhave the luxury of selection when things like price are not an object. Therefore, I wonder if Paris Hilton still drives around town looking for a Chevron?