Erika Wilhite
Published: August 23, 2005
So I’m standing in the shower a few days ago, washing my hair and trying to figure out how I’ll afford to buy gas once classes start and I’m on the road for an hour or two everyday.
Suddenly I have a flash of insight. No, I have an epiphany. If you’d asked me, say, an hour beforehand, what I thought of current gas prices, I would have blamed it on the president and his administration. “It’s the wars in the Middle East,” I would have told you, explaining that astronomical gas prices were also a factor in the first Gulf War. So it’s pretty much inevitable this time around.
Also, I would have said, higher oil prices make our Commander in Chief rich and, therefore, happy, because both he and Daddy Bush have so much invested in oil.
He’s also got a lot of money in weapons sales, which (or so I would have said before my epiphany) explains that whole deal. So war plus high gas prices equals rich, happy Bushes.
That thought made me really mad; I bet it makes you mad just thinking about it, too, right? So, I’m soaping my hair up and worrying about money, and it hits me like lightning – the Prez is doing it all for us! All those soldiers dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, the burgeoning National Debt, gas prices so damn high you’d think we were filling our tanks with gold bullion -Bush is going to all that trouble not for himself, dear citizen, but for us. And we don’t even have the decency to be thankful.
Think about it; the U.S. uses about a quarter of the world’s resources, including fossil fuels. We’re some of the laziest, best fed people on Earth, and consequently we also get the “World’s Fattest Nation” prize.
And what is this brilliant plan, you may ask? I will tell you: people who are forced to pay too much money for gas will eventually stop buying it. And, hey presto, that’s three major problems solved at once: the U.S. will no longer be dependant upon foreign oil, such a dramatic decrease in auto emissions will surely benefit the environment, and, most cleverest of all (as Bush would say), we’ll all have to walk or ride bikes everywhere! Just imagine how gloriously healthy and trim we will all be.
