Desensitized

Do you remember how, not so long ago, $90 oil was going to kill our economy? Airlines would stop airlining. Trucks would stop trucking. Automobiles would stop mobiling.

Now that's it has gone down in price from two years ago, our memory of cruel, awful, and icky four dollar gasoline has waned. $3 bucks? Yawn...

Apparently that's the best way to desensitize Americans to their own diminishing domestic supply of gasoline -- let the price rise quickly, let it ride down slowly, then slowly raise it back up to a higher level, to where they're saying "at least it's not as bad as before."

Interestingly, three dollar gas is now the norm and we go about our daily business here in Elk Grove without much concern. Yeah, it's now sixty bucks to gas up the Pacer, but it's just another cost of suburban living. That it goes up, well, at least it's consistent with health care premiums, state university tuition, insurance premiums, airline fees, subway fares, cable TV, copper, and garbage collection services.

Gas prices and the weather -- two things two Elk Grovians strangers are wont to discuss in an elevator ride...er, scratch that...there are no elevators here in the land of single story, single use sprawl. Sorry. Just gas prices. The thing two Elk Grovian strangers are wont to discuss in the checkout lane at WalMart.

Today I will get on the bike, off to a late start due to the Winter Solstice and its later sunrise, and I will pass six gas stations on my route. I should take photos of the people filling up -- would you expect smiles on all their faces? Something they love doing? The expressions of fillers are identical to the universal expression of airport janitors...have you ever noticed that they are all the same?

This is desensitizing writ large.