Tag Archives: Gas prices

Rachael’s Resolutions

Image by Clker-Free-Vector-Images from Pixabay.

In 2012, I revolutionized the practice of making New Year’s Resolutions. Instead of lying through my teeth about diets, exercise and tiresome niceness, I included only promises I could keep.

Still, I didn’t accomplish all my goals. I kept a pair of gloves intact, forgetting to lose one of every pair. I remembered to charge my phone before it quit four times that year. Despite my efforts to destroy the previous Christmas’s poinsettias, one still lives. I didn’t kill it completely, though judging from its appearance, it probably wishes I had.

Given these failures, an attack of perfectionism prevented me from attempting resolutions again.

But I’ve recovered. Noble aspirations for 2024 are listed below:

I promise to harmonize with background music in stores. Singing is gluten-free, contains zero calories and harbors no toxic substances (if on key).

While I may not be the best snow shoveler, I find ways to have fun.

Shoveling snow, I’ll throw half our driveway’s gravel into the yard. Come spring, I’ll pick up 15 percent and let Hubby’s lawnmower retrieve the rest.

I’ll wear only mom jeans, sparing myself and the rest of the world any attempts at wearing skinnies. Instead, I’ll move up a pants size. Moving up is a promotion, right?

I will not label freezer items. Plus, if I’m careful to maintain its chaos, a ten-pound unknown will tumble out every time I open it.

I’ll continue to laugh too loud at our pastor’s jokes on Sunday morning. Sorry, fellow church members, but my laughter comes in one-size-fits-all.

I will growl at the gas gods, whether they zap my pocketbook or lower prices and mess with the world economy.

I’ll never open the front window at drive-throughs without opening a back one first.

I will introduce my grandchildren to a new form of sugar their folks have banned.

I’ll bore my grandkids with “when I was a girl” stories. (The last time I did this, one grandson asked if I knew Betsy Ross.)

I will hand out free smiles, no limits, and no coupon needed.

I won’t change a single light bulb, even if we’re cast into outer darkness. Hubby needs to feel needed.

Finally, I will leave at least one cell phone unmuted, one car horn braying for no reason, and one zipper unzipped at the worst possible moments of 2024.

Too lofty a list?

Sigh. Perfectionism strikes again. …

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What doable resolutions will you make for 2024?

Being There

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These small words elicit king-sized effects.

My first cranky thought, another songwriter has run out of originality, as in:

Being there (ooh, baby)
Being there (ooh, baby)
Being there is like … 
Being there (ooooh, BABY!)

Okay, I need a second cup of coffee today. With double cream.

Much better.

Now I recall that being there when airline personnel solicit volunteers to take a different flight, I might land a free future trip.

Being in the right checkout line can mean the difference between three Tylenol^® and only one.

Fifty years ago, my being there to observe this cute boy from a library’s balcony changed our lives.

Being there at a library during a 1970 Christmas break placed me near the railing of a second-story atrium, eyeing my future husband below. Thus, I ensured he wasn’t with a girl and could “accidentally” run into him. (He still calls this stalking, but that’s because he hasn’t yet drunk his morning tea.)

Being there at a gas station when someone, perched on a ladder, is changing prices can mean a savings of 11 whole cents per gallon. Although, if the price is upped 11 whole cents, you’ve picked the perfect time and place to ruin your morning.

Though that timing isn’t as bad as certain shoplifters’ when, according to Reader’s Digest, they attempted major heists on Shop-with-a-Cop Day.

Being there can get complicated. Still, we want others to be there for us.

My mother refined this into an art form. One joyful day, when I learned I was ranked 10th in my high school class, I arrived home to the fragrance of muffins fresh from the oven. She’d baked them either to celebrate or console. Whatever happened, they were there for me.

So was Mom.

However, she also was there to enslave me with chores, require church attendance, and stare through my dates and me with righteous black eyes.

Years later, I appreciated her when I, too, baked after-school treats, mini-vanned my kids everywhere, and wandered into the den to “get stamps” from my desk while they were entertaining dates.

Being there can be threatening, wonderful, scary, tedious, triumphant, smelly, or comforting, but rarely boring. And lots better than not being there.

Sometimes, it’s just plain cuddly.

Tonight, Hubby and I are watching a Cubs game. We don’t make brilliant conversation. We don’t have to make conversation at all.

We simply savor being there.

Ooooh, baby.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Who’s been there for you?

Road Trip: Grand Adventure

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I missed Southern siblings and friends. I’d signed up for a writers’ retreat in Savannah, Georgia. Time for a road trip!

Why not fly?

I dislike heights. And oxygen masks. I’d rather wear a parachute.

Second, flights are delayed, cancelled and rescheduled ad nauseam. Would a camel prove more efficient?

But camels spit. Ergo, I drove.

Third, I felt old. I craved adventure.

So, I packed a huge suitcase. “Ha! No charge!”

Hubby couldn’t leave, so he demonstrated — again — how to operate Lavinia, my snooty GPS. With a goodbye kiss, I began my Grand Adventure.

I conquered a high, Ohio River bridge without hyperventilating. Kentucky and Tennessee’s hilly terrain didn’t faze Lavinia and me. However, she now refused to talk, and I nearly bypassed my Tennessee friends. Eventually, we enjoyed our visit.

Did Lavinia navigate the Appalachians?

No. We both freaked. Hoosiers shouldn’t be allowed to drive through mountains when roads under construction teem with a million semitrailers.

Whew! I arrived alive at my sister’s and celebrated a fun reunion with siblings.

Attempting to reach Savannah, though, I wandered in the wilderness. Not 40 years, but it seemed like 100, thanks to Lavinia, who still sulked in silence.

The elegant entrance to a Savannah home.

Fellow authors Gayle Roper and Janet McHenry and I at the Books & Such Literary Agency retreat.

Eventually (a key word), I found the Savannah retreat. Writing friends and I learned lots and cheered each other on.

I wanted the flattest route home — hopefully, without detouring to Kansas. Though a major storm occurred at night when every motel posted “No Vacancy” signs, the return trip proved easier. Hubby welcomed me, even with a huge suitcase of dirty clothes.

And a huge Visa bill. Given gas, hotel and food costs, driving hadn’t saved money. Semis nearly nosed my car over cliffs without offering either oxygen or parachute. I risked my life crossing bridges.

Siblings who once lived together wished each other on the moon, but now brave even miles through mountains to see each other.

Yet …

I’d embraced the freedom of the open road.

Mountains stunned me with beauty. I crossed five high bridges without needing an ambulance. Motel clerks, though unable to offer a room, refreshed this tired traveler.

Plus, the blessings of connecting with family and friends cannot be measured.

John Steinbeck journeyed with a friendly poodle and I with hostile Lavinia. Still, we shared joys he expressed in Travels with Charley. Though old, we risked adventure. I think Steinbeck would agree our journeys were grand.

But coming home was grander.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Was your last road trip a grand adventure?

Cruising

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Even before spring, desperate parents, after excessive winter togetherness, pay their teens to cruise. Their alien music blares through wide-open windows, loud enough for Martian counterparts to keep the beat.

But we did it, too, right? Although when I cruised, gas cost 30.9 cents per gallon.

In my hometown, puberty’s onset compelled us to cruise Jerry’s Drive-In. We parked outside, as only squares ate inside. My girlfriends and I feared if we darkened the restaurant’s door, Percy Faith and his orchestra (Jerry’s Muzak^®) would scar us for life.

My cruel parents once dragged me inside and made me sit by the window. I slid down into the booth and covered my head with a menu. Finally, I escaped to the restroom, but Mom followed.

She even talked to me. “Are you sick?”

Didn’t she know a Popular Person might be concealed in a stall, listening?

Afterward, on Saturday nights, I retreated to the second-coolest A&W — which tied with Jerry’s if your steady worked there. Fortunately, I was dating a cook. Sometimes, he came outside in all his A&W glory (apron, little folded hat) to wow me and my friends.

When we split, though, my A&W status plummeted. I returned to Jerry’s.

I’d noticed a tall, shy guy in my biology class, so my friend, Celia, and I officially added his house to weekend cruises. I’d perfected my slink-down technique: I could ride on the car’s floor an entire evening, yet record my targets like a satellite camera. Golf-green grass surrounded my guy’s house. Symmetrical evergreens. It was located near the A&W, so we also could zoom past and spy on my ex.

Once, when I drove past my crush’s house in my parents’ uncool station wagon, Celia hung out the window and screamed, “Steeeeeevie, baby, we looooove you!”

I peeled out, chastising Celia for endangering my fragile status with my new Numero Uno and his parents, who probably had been waxing their driveway.

However, no damage was done to my relationship with the sweet guy who made biology lab fruit flies so fascinating. Soon, he and I did a little cruising too.

“Want to go to the A&W?” my future husband asked as we pulled out of his driveway.

“I’d love it.”

And I did.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Where did you cruise as a teen?

Piracy at the Pump

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Two Great American Pastimes obsess us: comparing gas prices and despairing over gas prices.

When I want to gripe, bashing gas prices works every time, whether fluctuating up or down.

Say what? Don’t we want prices to drop?

Not necessarily. If you and I have just filled our tanks, we want prices to leap higher than a jumping bean on steroids.

Too often, however, we find the convenience store clerk upped the price 30 cents while we were using onsite facilities.

Economists obsess about demographics, political climates and laws of supply and demand. They’re right about that last one. Those who supply gas can demand whatever they want.

Despite recent falling prices, we continue to exchange hot tips as if stations were speakeasies. Lately, as I prowled, looking for the best deal, childhood memories of gas stations overtook me.

“Ding-ding!” In the 1960s, a bell always greeted our car’s arrival at friendly stations. I liked the heady fragrance as our station wagon sucked in fuel like cherry Coke through a straw.

Strong men with greasy hands not only pumped gas, they washed windshields and checked oil. When something broke, they fixed it with manly, clanky tools.

Attendants carried cool metal coin dispensers and wads of dollars in heavy leather wallets. They were rich, since Dad paid them 25.9 cents a gallon. They gave away free road maps and Christmas drinking glasses.

Now, as I drove past stations, I winced. They probably didn’t give away free toilet paper, let alone glasses. I checked another station where I had posted earlier successes.

Cheap gas at last! I filled up and left quickly so the next customer could use the pump. No friendly “ding-ding” good-bye. Too bad gas stations weren’t the way they used to be.

Passing higher prices on the way home, I celebrated. However, my smugness ended when I walked in the door.

“Did you pay for your gas?” My husband nailed me.

“Of course, I … uh. …”

Of course, I hadn’t.

“The police called.” My beloved didn’t look inclined to post bail. “Go back and pay.”

I flew out the door. Did they put gas thieves in solitary confinement? What if my pastor saw me taken away in shackles?

“There you are!” The manager, who knew me, burst into giggles. “When the cops called, I told them you forgot.”

I poured out thanks and signed my guilty name on the credit card slip. Still looking for helicopters overhead, I sneaked away.

Again, no friendly dings. But I vowed to return soon. This kind station manager didn’t need a ding-ding to take good care of this ding-dong.

Plus, her gasoline was a real steal.

Have you ever driven away or walked out without paying?