Americans Submit to Oil Company Rule

rom coast to coast, American drivers are facing the soaring cost of gasoline in the midst of economic hardship. The highest pump price was $2.54 a gallon last week in San Diego, and many are worried the costs will continue to rise as OPEC announced recently it would cut back, not increase, oil production. Unhappily, most Americans shrugged and bowed to corporate bidding in response.

"It's the inevitability of a corporate oligarchy," said Trenton, New Jersey resident Manuel Torres, while filling his Vista Cruiser. "What can you do?"

Indeed the general consensus by the public matches Torres' intention to bend over and suffer through the economic buggering. Americans are filling up their cars no less, demanding no new changes in import laws or fuel regulations, and are still buying gas-sucking SUVs in ridiculous numbers. Media watchers, lurking in the bushes, speculate it might not stem from a lack of information on the issues so much as a total demolition of the will to resist, and the death of democracy.

"Nobody wants to pay so much for gas, but it doesn't seem like you got any choice," summed up Marilyn Hoscomb of Richmond, Virginia, at a Shell station where the prices had reached $1.84. "We've squandered our freedom voting for parties who have crippled unions and segregated the public on meaningless issues of morality. Now that our spineless leaders are firmly in the pocket of gargantuan energy firms, even mobilizing voter turnout, an impossible feat, would do little to help us. I suppose I'll just fill up during the week and not go driving as much on the weekends."

The issue has stimulated some political discussion, with Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry promising to put the pressure on oil-producing countries to give us more gas. "That ought to solve the problem forever," said Kerry, clapping his hands together and crossing his arms. Bush countered by accusing Kerry of wanting to raise taxes on gas, something Republicans have never done before, and offering no insight on how to stem the problem, but the mere fact he mentioned the problem ought to make us normal citizens feel privileged.

Custard Patch, Wyoming's Jed McGernihey found the higher gas prices affecting his livelihood, as the cost to refuel his gypsy U-Haul continues to skyrocket. "I used to be able to cover my expenses, but gas costs so much I might have to find me a new line of work. I don't know why the government ain't doing nothing about it—unless the very same people we put into office are nothing but cheap puppets of the energy industry, companies like Enron and Halliburton, corrupt and bloated with profits and high-paid CEOs. Companies that safeguard their interests by pocketing political figures to turn a blind eye to their number-fixing, book-altering, and price inflating, which says nothing of their hazardous safety records and environmental pollution—but all of whom remain free from the punishment of the law because they own the lawmakers, and only have to answer to the deceived stockholders to stay afloat. Of course, that's just a guess."

Professor Lawrence Dill Vanderhouten of Harvard's Political Science Department, addressed the gas pricing issue for the commune.

"Shit, I got me no clue," said Professor Vanderhouten. "I'm gonna wait till it drops down again and then buy a thousand dollars worth of gas. I'll freeze it and sell it when the price goes up again. Make a killing and get out of this shit job."

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"Four score, and seven years ago these fuckers couldn't even get a date."

There's a famous quote by Mark Twain that I've never heard before. It goes, "When I die, I want it to be in Kentucky. Because everything happens ten years later there." So my first idea was I wanted to go there and see if I could catch that last episode of Murphy Brown I never saw.

Don't bother going, that's all I'm saying. It's all some sort of joke because Kentucky is in the same time zone, as far as I could tell, and the newspaper there has the same date. And the grass isn't blue there, either. It's mostly brown, at least in that cow field I checked out. "State of Big Fat Liars," that's what the licensed plate should say.

It would be great if license plates said real stuff about the state. Texas would be like "We grow assholes daily!" and Florida would be "Most likely to secede!" Rhode Island's could be "Who?" You could give them all new nicknames, too. What's with Missouri being the "Show Me State"? Last time I was in East St. Louis there was only one guy to show me something and it wasn't enough to make me want to go back to St. Louis again, I'll tell you that. New York could be called the World's Biggest Target State. Wyoming could be called the Sounds of Silence State. Minnesota, the Amazing Shrinking Frosty Scrotum State, if that will all fit on one license plate, and Montana could be the FBI Standoff Capitol State.

It's amazing, I can just ring those off one after the other. I would do all the states but I'm not going to take up the whole column naming six more states. Not when there's more important things that are easier to remember.

I've been to almost every state on the continent, though I can't say with certainty if there's any I haven't been to. Keep in mind as part of my job I get knocked out or drugged and dragged across state lines a lot. So I wouldn't rule out the possibility I've been to Hawaii, Alaska, or even some of the U.S. territories like Puerto Rico and Canada. There are some times I'm pretty sure the engine is a plane and it turns out to be a diesel truck or something, so I'm sure I could have made the mistake in reverse a few dozen times.

If I had to pick one state to be abducted and taken to, forced to dig your own grave and then piss yourself scared before they tell you it's all a call-in radio show prank in, I would say Pennsylvania is the best yet. Now keep in mind I haven't seen more than a few other countries, so this is just amongst states, but these guys are, at least in my experience, extremely friendly to victims of call-in radio shows. If you get struck from behind in an abandoned parking garage and wake up to find yourself tied with guns trained on you, and you suspect it will all be a joke, try to remember to request Pennsylvania. Especially if you think you'll be forced to find your own transportation out. They're nice as hell to hitchhikers.

I liked it so much I'm going back next Thursday. But don't tell the guys at WROK, I want them to think it's a real surprise.

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Few were happier than good Samaritan Rok Finger when Lee came out of his coma. Sure, Camembert appeared happy about it—a little too happy, if you ask me. But I was the one who had loaded him up with alcohol and convinced him real men can knock back a few dozen Harvey Wallbangers and then drive with no problem, so the guilt was more than enough to make me hope for him to pull through—and when he did, I expected a few questions. Where am I? How did I get back here? Why didn't you take me to a hospital? Why can't that kid walk? But this is not what I expected.

Lee after the crash did not really seem all that different from Lee before the crash (let's refer to him as Lee B.C.). Yes, he's taken to speaking in rhyme and wearing a three-foot peppermint-striped hat, but I thought it a phase we all go through. What really bothers me is he won't answer to Lee anymore and insists I eat rotten meat and eggs.

Okay, they may not actually be rotten, but they're bright green. You tell me what your first assessment is of the quality of this ham and eggs he's pushing. I wake up, my first guilt-free sleep in a week (besides my afternoon naps), and find Lee cooking breakfast. Fantastic! It appeared at first the crash actually improved him—the old Lee never cooked breakfast, woke up early, paid rent or bathed. I considered taking Camembert for a ride like Jeff Bridges took Rosie Perez in Fearless, hoping for the same great results as with Lee; or Rosie Perez herself, if I could get her in the car. That is, until Lee revealed his true colors—bright green.

I politely refused to eat his foul-colored eggs and porkskin, but that wasn't enough. He kept offering to make the setting more presentable in any way to make me eat them. A bigger or shinier plate, a glass of milk, bringing a fox to the table or threatening to trap me in a box. I'm not sure what either of those would do to improve my appetite, but he was pretty insistent. He already had the fox locked in my bedroom. I still tried to politely reject it, then I resorted to the F-word—flatulence; odd-colored food makes me gassy. But he would not be thwarted.

Even going to the office didn't stop him. He popped up in the backseat of my car and tried to shove them in my mouth. I later found him stuffed inside a drawer of my desk, which at his full 5'5" height made it uncomfortable for him, I'm sure, yet he still was trying to force these emerald eggs and bacon down my gullet. I told him I wouldn't even eat them on a train, or on a plane—though it looks an awful lot like travel food. I beat him to the punch as well by telling him I wouldn't eat them in the rain, a sewer drain, off a yellow stain, if served by Billy Zane, while listening to the Clash's "Train in Vain," wrestling Tom Payne, or if I was insane. This impressed him to no end, I believe.

Then, finally, just to be left alone, I tried them. Nobody was more surprised than I was.

I was made horribly, horribly sick. They rushed me to the emergency room and pumped my stomach, and when they found green meat and eggs, let's just say the doctors and nurses chided me into humiliation in front of the whole emergency room. They said it was obvious Lee had a severe head trauma and needed medical attention as well. And me, well, I was just an asshole for eating green eggs and ham offered by a man with a critical concussion.

So I've learned my lesson. Or maybe I haven't. I won't eat any food that isn't the right color anymore, I know that. Sometimes your instincts are dead on, and men in peppermint hats can't be trusted.

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