Classical Gas: The Very Annoying Truth About The Cost Of Gasoline

So I filled the bird up again today and another $60 disappeared down the gas tank.  I really get irritated every time I fill up the car, particularly because I can remember when gas was $0.27/gal. There is a part of me that wants to rail against the machine and damn the oil companies and government for the high cost but the truth is, as much as I hate to admit it, gas is a pretty good deal.

Gas comes from oil and oil is not always easy to find. It’s buried deep below the earth’s surface and not always in places that are easy to get to. It takes specialized technology to extract the oil and refine it into gasoline and it requires a highly specialized channel of delivery to get it into the hands of consumers. All of that is expensive.

Water, by contrast, is found lying around all over the place, with the exception of a few desert countries. It’s easy to harvest, requires no refining and is distributed through thousands of existing retail delivery channels.

Today, the price of gas was $1.18 L (for my American friends that would be the equivalent of $5.37/gal). The price of a bottle of water was $0.89/600ml or $1.48 / liter ($7.93/gal). It gets worse. A 300 ml bottle of Perrier, which is nothing more than carbonated water, cost $1.19 or $3.92/L ($21.04/gal) and it’s just water!

But it isn’t just water, it’s most fluids. Ketchup for example, \sold by the Liter would cost about three times the price of gas while some shampoos are almost ten times the price of an equivalent amount of gasoline (a few speciality shampoos are twice that again)

And yet…it’s the price of gas that crawls under our skin and makes us itch.

I’m not sure why that is but I admit that I’m right there with most people. While I don’t mind paying twice as much for coke as I do for gas, I resent paying what I pay for gas. It’s irrational I admit but it is what it is.

I am resolved, however, to try and reign in my frustration and annoyance because I am thankful that the auto industry hasn’t decided that going green should include cars that run on shampoo.  That would pretty much bankrupt us, wouldn’t it? Could you imagine having to pay $600 to fill your tank with Pantene?

Be thankful. Gas is cheaper than we think. It’s just annoying that it costs what it costs. I hate admitting that. I think I'd rather be annoyed about it.

It's too bad we couldn't develop a car that runs on political hot air. There's enough of that around for everyone and it's cheap too!

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