All I can do when I arrive at the gas pump is smile and look fondly at how low the prices are now for a gallon of gas. A nostalgic, Clinton-era tear whets the corner of my eye, provoked by fond memories of gas that was just about a buck a gallon during the earlier part of this decade. And on the other side of my face streams another tear, rejoicing that my monthly gas bill has effectively dropped from $180+ per month, to well under eighty bucks; more nachos and movies for me this December!

And I think that everybody is with me when I exclaim: thank goodness the gas prices have dropped and there is cheap fuel to be had, because I don’t know how much longer I could afford to pay four bucks or more per gallon at the pump. It felt like highway robbery and indeed it was. Oil production had not slowed. Wells were not going dry at a freakish rate. Heck, even the major oil conglomerates were posting trillion dollar all-time record sales—and meanwhile they were extorting us for our few and far between hard earned dollars.

Some people were even faced with trying to wager buying food or gas; an irony that has several facets if you think about it. You need gas to get to work. You need to go to work to pay the bills, and buy food to eat. But if you can’t afford to buy gas to get to work, then you won’t eat. And if you can’t eat, you can’t go to work to buy gas. You see, it would go back and forth in my head each time I would stare at the desolate grin of the $4.25 gallon marker. And then there were gas stations, not all of them mind you, but a good deal of them, who decided that this would be a great time to tell you hey, “If you use your debit card or credit card to buy gas, we are going to charge you another fee!”

Of course, during all of this, the major oil companies were turning a blind eye to the people while reaping the cash barrels and smoking fancy cigars behind closed doors. And why should they care? Do you think the Hugo Chaves gives a crap how broke we are? He wants us to be broke so we are not an ‘imminent threat’ as he so fondly banters. And do you think that OPEC or the oil rich nations, many who only speak to us because we have made them rich, really care if they charge us more per barrel of crude oil? Exactly!

But they all forget one thing when it comes to cheap gas: if we can’t afford to drive to work, then we can’t afford to eat. And if we can eat, then they won’t make any money whatsoever from us. So after considerable raping, to the tune of a few years, suddenly, the gas prices plummet to record lows, and now I can afford to eat and drive to work again. Thanks big oil guys! Thanks for taking all my money last year. But thank you again for helping me to put food on the table this year! Not! Hydrogen-power anybody?