Two dollar gas

Isn't it funny how we freak out about gas prices? I was in Mattoon, IL and saw this gas station. Being from the city - land of the 60 dollar fill up - I was shocked and immediately snapped a picture. Then I began to think about it.

We use about 13 gallons of gas a week. I'm no expert, but that probably puts us at about average. At $2 per gallon, that's about $26. At $4 per gallon it's $52. Over 52 weeks, I'm paying $1352 more when gas is at $4 per gallon than when it's at $2. Seems like a lot.

Actually that comes to 3.70 per day. Or, alternatively, the cost of a frothy cappucino. So the difference between unreasonably high gas prices and super-cheap gas is about a cappucino per day. For a lot of us, that's pretty insignificant.

Makes me wonder why the election made such a big deal about "pain at the pump." Fox News wouldn't shut up about how offshore drilling would "solve" gas prices. Obama and Biden spent a lot of stump time going on about alterrnative energy, which although good for the environment was also intended to ease people's fears about gas prices.

You know why I think that everyone panics? Because gas prices change every day. And we all have to buy it every week. It's just so visible. We have so many other problems, I think we are just spending too much time haggling over so little.