Prices at the Pump

These past few weeks have seen increases in gasoline prices to all-time highs. Recently, I heard on WCBS-AM that a station in Brooklyn was charging somewhere near $4.60 a gallon for regular unleaded gas!!! Soon after the report came out, the station lowered the price on a gallon of regular gas, to a more "manageable" $3.50 per gallon. Let's just say I'm glad I just live and WALK in Brooklyn and am not driving there.

There are many purported sources of the fuel price increases, ranging from Big Oil to individual station owners who "get greedy" at the sign of another fuel increase and tack some on for themselves. The true explanation, one that most Americans, myself included, don't want to admit is that we live in a free market, and are subject to the forces of such a market. A free market can be influenced by anything from the war in Iraq to Bush appointing a new press secretary. So the reality is that we really can be held accountable, as a nation, for the various actions our "leader" takes across the globe. I'm not saying increased gasoline prices are a direct result of the war in Iraq, but you must be seriously kidding (seriously kidding, is that possible?) yourself if you believe that the two are unrelated.

I often, OFTEN, tell this story about my senior year of high school, 1999. I used to drive to a gas station, mind you a recently-opened gas station, about 10 minutes from my house, that sold regular unleaded gas for $0.99 per gallon. That's right, less than a buck. 5 such bucks could get me anywhere my 17 year old heart desired for about a week. Perfection. Now I'm 24, have a job, somehow don't have a car (product of that whole "I MUST live and work in New York City" mentality) and find myself telling stories of "when I was your age...". That's not right. I should have about 60 more years of living before I start recounting such tales to anyone, let alone my peers. So what's really causing the gas price increase? I can't honestly say I know. But what I do know is that, just as every other aspect of life, things will never be the same. I don't know if $3.00 per gallon is here to stay, but I do know that $0.99 a gallon is a fond memory of my senior year of high school... one of many.