the many woes

Today, Pic was watching a My Little Ponies movie (total karmic payback, I know) when I told Cardo that we needed to go to Costco and see if they had any discs so we could save our pictures on them (because we have a digital camera and the stereotypical hundreds of pictures that we might never again look at and I hate slogging through five hundred and thirty-two pictures trying to find the one I'm looking for). Pic's whole self, that was just miliseconds before wholly enrapt in My Little Ponies, perked up. "I want to go to Costco!" I'm not sure why it's so alluring, but at least she was agreeable about the trip she'd have to take whether she wanted to or not (I just don't know that Snuggles and Lucky are up to the task of pouring her juice and watercoloring with her).

About two minutes into the drive, Cardo says, "I hope this is enough gas to get us to Costco." I looked at the meter and he had about an ounce of gas left in the car. About two minutes after he said this, the warning light came on. We had to stop at a Shell station and put one gallon of gas in the car to tide us over until we got to Costco. When we arrived, every line for a pump at the Costco gas station had at least four cars in it. We were all waiting to pay almost four dollars a gallon. And I thought of high school when gas was $.97 a gallon. Yes, that decimal point is in the right place. Sure, this price didn't last long, but gas was at least two dollars a gallon cheaper. And I thought of conversations, several years ago, about the rising prices of gas and reassurances that, "At least we're not paying four dollars a gallon like some countries' citizens." Really, America, that is not the kind of competition we need to live up to.