When I ordered my Prius hybrid four years ago, I got some kidding about waiting forty-nine weeks for it to arrive in my life. Then I got more kidding about deviating from the great American commitment to burning petroleum and about the unlikelihood of my saving the planet with my environmentally friendly automobile.
And then the price of gas started to go up....and up.....and up. The observations diminished, and at $3.50 or so a gallon for gas in these parts, I haven't heard anything for quite some time.
Now I wouldn't want you to think that I'm not proud of my 45-49 miles a gallon; I am, to the point that when I drive out of the gas station have expended twenty-five bucks or so, I can't bear to look at what that black Toyota Tundra truck or the Lincoln Navigator or the Cadillac Escalade might be paying to fill up a tank. If I were to look, I might smirk as I drove by, and Heaven knows what the result of that might be.
The other day I read that some auto dealers were refusing trade-ins of SUVs, because they seem to believe they won't be able to sell them. Probably going to happen with other of the giant gas guzzlers with which we share the road.
I got a hybrid because it seemed to me that the price of fuel could only go up. The weakening dollar, pressure from other industrializing countries, the sense that the supply of petroleum is finite, and the dissatisfaction with our profligate attitude about life in general were also much in my thoughts.
In our area, we have been reluctant to invest in mass transit, but we expand our roadways at the drop of the proverbial chapeau. We buy big vehicles for security, in spite of accumulating evidence that they are less safe than normal size autos, and we buy them because, at heart, we love playing the game of displaying our success in our home(s), auto(s), fashionable attire, and such.
In our current economic swoon, we could do worse than remember how our our parents and grandparents fought their way through the Great Depression. We do have an opportunity to return to the basics now, and we probably should. The invoice for the five year war is in the mail, and when it shows up, we had better have own priorities clearly understood.
