For any amount of cash

I've been waiting for years to buy a brand new cadillac
But now that i've got one i want to send it right back
I can't afford the gas to fill my luxury limousine
But even if i had the dough no one's got no gasoline

There's no more left to buy or sell
There's no more oil left in the well
A gallon of gas can't be purchased anywhere
For any amount of cash

-the Kinks, A Gallon of Gas


There is a Chinese curse that goes something like this: "May you live through interesting times."

Maybe I'm dating myself here, but I recall hanging my head out of my high school bus and waving at a friend who was stuck in a long line of cars, waiting to get to a gas pump, back in the '70's. He waved back without enthusiasm, and I recall feeling rather smug that, although still yet too young to have a driver's license, I hadn't followed the course of many of my upper classmates in hot pursuit of getting their own wheels as soon as they had license in hand. I never minded taking the bus, even sludging through snow-crunched streets in Michigan winter months towards that bus stop.

My indifference towards transportation served me well during the oil embargo of those times....those interesting times. The Kinks wrote the above song when the album "Low Budget" came out, and it's been dancing in my head for the last several days.

The current gas shortage, of course, is different. There is no saber rattling going on in the SE USA (except maybe at those who would dare to cut in line at an open gas station) - it's only due to a couple of hurricanes, and the failure of those in charge to safeguard enough supplies to see us through forced refinery shutdowns due to nasty weather.

We drive around town and pass station after station with the now-familiar plastic bags over the pumps, and deserted lots. It's like 1973 all over again, only this time we are also reading about an impending bailout that will keep us feeling poor, fearing the worst and hoping for the best, for a long time to come - and the accompanying sound track isn't as good.

We are living the Chinese curse! It's a cheap curse, I suppose, since it has "Made in China" stamped on its ass. A cheap curse with overwhelming repercussions.

The Chinese curse. I love irony, don't you?