My Real Problem With The Gas Hikes

Author's note: This article was originally posted in July of 2006, but we feel that it is one of the few timeless things that we have published in the few years that we've been junking up the internet with our own special brand of drivel.

(My real problem with the gas hikes...) is not the added difficulty in finding ways to get by with less recreation money in my budget, nor is it jealousy toward oil executives who seem to be taking advantage of American desperation and excess. These factors only register minimally on my frustrat-o-meter.

My real problem with the gas hikes is that they inhibit one of my chief idiosyncracies, which is also one of the cornerstones of my (recently) diagnosed obsessive compulsive disorder: Precision Pumping.

It used to be, when gas was less than one dollar per gallon, one could see the monetary ticker registering and rounding to the next dollar amount several seconds in advance of it actually switching over. Nowadays, that ticker flashes through numbers at rates in excess of three times that of the gallon ticker. Often, the monetary gauge will skip over a number completely. In my case, it always does this right after resting on the number "99."

I say we call upon OPEC and Exxon to end these incessant price increases; partly for the reasons listed in the first paragraph, but mostly because I usually only have an intact ten dollar bill on hand and rarely carry contingency pennies to the pump.