Gas Prices High; Common Sense Low

FYI: This is the most gratuitously punctuated, CAPS hungry post in all of Bits and Pieces history...read on, if you dare!

Some people's Common Sense tanks are running as empty as my gas tank lately...

Here's TWO examples from Friday afternoon...

I'm driving out of town after a leisurely grocery shop at Wal Mart Supercenter...tires and celery AND DVDs all in the same place!?! Genius!
Anyway...this giant truck is right in my blind spot and I think it's a friggin giant diesel cross-country you know, a trucker truck. But it's not. The guy finally pulls up out of my blind spot (incidentally, he's trying to go 70 on a road with a 45 mph speed limit and cars all around him going said speed limit so he's riding bumpers and creeping in blind spots - AKA I hate him) and he's driving a Ford F-250 Super Cab with Lariat Trim...Diesel.


It's a big-ass truck. I mean, wow.
I looked it up online -- that sucker gets MAYBE 10-12 mpg. Holy MOSES! and it'll hold about 30 gallons o' gas...ringing up at around $90 depending on where you are located and taking you about 300-360 miles. FOR $90!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That's insanity.

I remember the good ol' days....cue the wayback machine.....when gas was 99 CENTS per gallon and I drove a Honda Accord that got 75 miles per gallon (well...less than that, but much more than 10!) and aaaahhh, the freedom. This was as recently as 1997-98 perhaps by the way. Kinda makes you sick to your stomach, no?


OK, story #2

Moments after this Ford F-250 Lariat (Arizona license plate HGHNMTY = High And Mighty = Jerkoff) passes by me and about four other cars in a swervy motion, I drive by the Safeway gas station, advertising at around $2.99 per gallon. In the little driveway to the shopping center are three people holding up a makeshift cardboard and Sharpie sign.
The sign says "Stranded. Need Gas!"

I thought...take a number kids, you're stuck! But then I saw that these were three people of mature age...at LEAST in their 40s, and I again thought to myself...how the hell do you run out of gas when you're 40 some odd years old?????
I did it TWICE when I was 16 (and newly licensed) and then NEVER AGAIN!
The pain of running a gas tank dry is so palpable, it scares you into submission to BIG OIL!
So while I felt this sad trio's pain, I did not stop to give them $5 or some other odd amount of currency, instead I thought.... "Sucks to be you. Good luck with your scam!" and drove on home.