The latte factor
3/5/06 10:48![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darkemeraldsI was just in my friendly Seattle's Best A Wholly-Owned Subsidiary of Starbucks and, over the music on my MP3 player, heard a woman saying to her companion as she accepted her large coffee drink from the barista:
I mean, three dollars a gallon! What do we have to do to get the government to knock these prices down? Maybe three bucks a gallon is all right for people like Bill Gates, but it's to a point now where I have to decide between eating and filling up my tank. I know I'm not the only person in this boat. It's a great big cruise ship.
Several things went through my mind, the principal of which were:
I know that we have a great big country whose entire infrastructure is woven around cheap fuel; I know that people have innocently built their own lives on the same premise and are now in trouble because they can't just suddenly quit driving to work. I know it's not as simple as, "Get over it."
But I have a problem with the (apparent) expectation that Our Way of Life is an entitlement. It's not. It's a huge luxury that we in no way "deserve," but merely happen to have been born into. Looks like our turn is just about over. As a first course of action, we might want to consider giving up that daily sixteen-dollar-a-gallon coffee drink.
I mean, three dollars a gallon! What do we have to do to get the government to knock these prices down? Maybe three bucks a gallon is all right for people like Bill Gates, but it's to a point now where I have to decide between eating and filling up my tank. I know I'm not the only person in this boat. It's a great big cruise ship.
Several things went through my mind, the principal of which were:
- it's more like six bucks a gallon in the rest of the world
- I filled up my tank yesterday and it shocked the hell outta me
- yeah, I'm buying a latte too, but at least I see the irony clearly enough to keep my mouth shut
I know that we have a great big country whose entire infrastructure is woven around cheap fuel; I know that people have innocently built their own lives on the same premise and are now in trouble because they can't just suddenly quit driving to work. I know it's not as simple as, "Get over it."
But I have a problem with the (apparent) expectation that Our Way of Life is an entitlement. It's not. It's a huge luxury that we in no way "deserve," but merely happen to have been born into. Looks like our turn is just about over. As a first course of action, we might want to consider giving up that daily sixteen-dollar-a-gallon coffee drink.
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