Are you doing your part to ease our reliance upon foreign oil? Sure you are. Me to.
Something has to be done for cryin’ out loud. We can’t continue with this $3-plus gasoline now, can we?
But what to do? That’s the $64,000 per tank question.
I can think of any number of ways for you to contribute to our mutual rescue from the oil lords across the pond. I suggest you chip in by pulling the plug on your air conditioning this summer. Likewise with the natural gas this winter. Going naked now and burrowing into a pile of a couple dozen dogs in January and February should get you through.
Here’s another idea. You could park all your vehicles and walk everywhere. “If it ain’t within walking distance, we ain’t going” could be your new mantra. Seems to me that’s the least you could do. No need to waste gas in that snowblower either ... at least not yours. Get out the shovel and dig in. You’ll not only save gas, thus leaving more for the rest of us to burn in our snowblowers, you’ll achieve a euphoric state of cardiovascular and musculoskeletal fitness. If you’re not dropped in your mukluks by a heart attack.
Cold showers. A moratorium on all TV (yes, Dancing with the Stars included). Eschewing electric lights for candles. Your family suspending all future vacations. So many good ideas for you, so little time. If you use gas in your fishing boat, stop fishing or row. Same thing works for your old huntin’ truck. Park it. Instead of hunting you could write your memoirs by candlelight while sipping melted snow. I declare, the list of ways for you to relieve our reliance upon foreign energy just goes on and on and on.
Will I chip in and do my part? Heck yes. Already doing it in fact. Don’t mind admitting a big of smugness, even, now that I’ve ‘gone green.’
My sacrifice is to park the trusty 1991 Jeep Cherokee with the oxidized paint and the complete lack of either power door locks or power windows. Yes, this is the Jeep that drives like a headache-inducing, tooth-shattering tank.
I’ll do this because the aforementioned Jeep gets, what, 20 mpg at the best and flirts with single digits at the worst?
Not only that, I’ll continue to leave the 1993 Suburban sitting, too. This is the Suburban with 221,000 miles and broken air conditioning.
In the alternative, I promise to re-prioritize my lifestyle completely and go to a small, high mpg car. A car with just a wee little 4-banger for a motor. A car with a straight stick. A car with rear-wheel-drive, if you can believe that.
It sure won’t be easy, but somehow I’ll stuff my 6-4, 260-pound carcass in there. It’s for a noble cause you see. There are only two seats and almost no trunk, but somehow (sigh!) I’ll muddle through. The engine is where the back seat is in your car and the tiny slice of trunk is behind that, but what the heck, it’s not the end of the world to have no back seat. Would be for you of course, but I’m tough.
Did I mention the little car in question is my 1991 Toyota MR2 sports car? The one with less than 80,000 miles? The one I had in mothballs and was saving (though what I was ‘saving’ it for at age 59 escapes me just now). The one with the twin overhead cam, 16-valve, twin-entry turbo. As I said before, it’s ‘just’ a 4-cylinder, but it’s a bit excitable. Especially with that short-throw five-speed, a redline at 7,000, a speedometer that goes to 160 and an owner’s manual that counsels against going over 90 ... in third.
Behave yourself and it’ll give you 30-plus mpg. Tickle that turbo too much, however, and the gas needle plunges like a stone.
Do I promise to drive nice? Sure (tee hee). These are desperate times. Sacrifices must be made.
Contact — stephen.moseley@yorknewstimes.com
