Why is it every single time there is a holiday weekend where people are likely to drive, the gas prices mysteriously go up!?

Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Oh “they” try to make you believe that gas prices are tied to all kinds of unpredictable events. Like – a hurricane that disables an oil refinery in the Gulf, a pipeline breakage in the Mideast, a factory somewhere that goes offline for “cleaning”, a butterfly in Africa that flaps its wings…

Well, I’m here to tell you it’s all B.S!   We make two visits a year to Northern California where Randy the perfekt husband’s relations live. One at Christmas and one at the 4th of July. And you know what? Every single year for the last ten years, no matter whether gas is $2.50 a gallon or $4.00 a gallon, just before the holiday…the price goes up!

“They” try to be subtle about it. The price creeps up a few cents a day, leading up to the holiday. Until BAM! by the time the holiday hits and I have to fill my tank, it’s SIGNIFICANTLY more expensive than it was the week before.

And don’t tell me this isn’t on purpose! That this isn’t gouging at it’s most insidious! Because guess what? As soon as the holiday is over, it mysteriously creeps back down.

This happens right before Memorial Day weekend and any other 3 day weekend that occurs during the course of the year, too.

And “they” think we’re not going to notice this?! “They” think we’re gonna believe their denials that they are NOT manipulating gas prices?  These companies that SWORE they had nothing to do with the prices going north of $4.00 a gallon? These same companies that made record profits during the worst of that gas price crisis? That continue to make record profits during this recession? What do they think we are? IDIOTS?!

Well they’re right! We are idiots.  Because after decades of warnings that we’re going to run out of fossil fuels, here we are still completely reliant upon them.  Still polluting our environment with them.  

What about the Hybrid boom, you ask? There are loads more on the road the last couple of years. Yeah. That only happened after gas prices got so ridiculously high people felt forced to change. NOT out of a sense of duty to the future and our planet. But because people didn’t want to spend the extra money.

We have our priorities straight all right. I know we do where I live. I see a lot of well-tended mommies driving Hummers or the more feminine H2. And they’re not heading for paramilitary maneuvers in the high desert, no siree bob. They’re parked in front of Simply Nails. Nothing but acrylic tips for a woman who tools around the burbs in a vehicle that gets 3 miles to the gallon.

And you know what? When I’m standing at the gas pump, taking it in the tank like everyone else on this planet, I get the tiniest bit of satisfaction when I see the shocked look on Ms. H2’s face when she fills her vehicle at the pump next to me. I guess there’s an upside to everything, if you look hard enough.

Bottom line. Silence is complicity. And people don’t change until they’re absolutely forced to.

And that is my RANT for today.