That’s as far back as I can go in my memory for the cheapest I ever saw gas.

Speaking of which, today I put gas in my car. I could only afford to buy $20 worth, and for that, I got 4.79 gallons. I stopped and did the math several times in my head while the gas was going in. I kept looking at that computer thing adding up the money I was spending and what I was getting for it. I let my hand off the gas handle several times. My brain wanted to go back to the older versions of the pumps that had the cost and the gallons going at what seemed to be about the same speed, maybe then I could understand it and keep up with it. Something just seemed wrong. How could I have spent $15 and still have only 3+something gallons of gas? Huh!? It was moving faster than my mind could comprehend. My hard-earned money was literally running away from me.

When I pulled in to the station the sign had said a gallon of regular gas was $4.17. I thought to myself, Well, that is “only” 17 CENTS more than last week and 10 gallons times 17 CENTS is ONLY $1.70, so that shouldn’t cost me THAT MUCH MORE.

SO WHAT WAS WRONG? I kept multiplying 4 dollars times 5 for some reason, and then I just gave up! When the meter hit $20, I surrendered and put the nozzle back in the rack and pulled my receipt out from the beast’s mouth and climbed back into my car. . . . steam coming out of both ears.

During this time, no human being ever came out to say hello to me. Not a living soul spoke to me. If it had been a snowy night, I would have stood out there alone in the cold, too damn confused to have appreciated the aesthetic qualities in the uniqueness of each falling snowflake, contemplating how, like us, no two are alike. If a sudden summer storm had come rushing in, I would have been swept across the parking lot to the front of my car, scrambling to hold on to something while watching the pump hose scatter away with my dollars while the evil thieving gas pump determinedly continued to zoom along in its avaricious consumption of my dollars followed by decimal points. In my mind’s eye, I can see myself sliding through the parking lot now, flailing my arms.

These days, the only way my windshield gets cleaned is when I do it myself, and even though I know I should check the oil every time I fill up, I only check it every now and then. And don’t even ask me the last time I checked air pressure in my tires.

I haven’t seen an RC Cola or a Moon Pie in decades; in all honesty, I’ve lost my taste for both of them. Yet, in spite of my preference today for fruit-flavored sparkling water and a Krispy Kreme original (which HAS to be warm), I don’t have a dime left in my pocket after pouring the damn $4.17 a gallon gas into my car’s tank on my own, which is not always done with a roof over my head, and never in a place where I am protected from the cold or the hot, the winds and the dust, the unanticipated rains.

The scary part is that we see this everywhere we turn. We pay more for less, and we seem perfectly willing to accept it. I walk into a grocery store, and after picking up a few items that have suddenly leaped in price from the week before, I find that we have the option to check ourselves out at some little computer thingee and pack our own groceries ourselves. What a con! What a load of hog manure. This puts two people out of work while at the same time making us do that work ourselves without even getting a discount for doing it. And then we are even willing to push our purchases in carts to our cars ourselves. Who talked us into this? What a foolish way to do business.

I see it at the airport, when I stand in a line that has only two check-in persons at the counter but half a dozen computers where I can enter my E-ticket info. Well, excuse me, but after paying $2,000 or more for a ticket, I want someone to say, “Good morning, sir, how may I help you today?” When it comes to education, I want a teacher who will communicate with me, not just tell me on the computer to read chapters 1 through 4 and answer the following questions, and then never provide feedback on what I have written. I don’t want to press 1 or 2 or 3 “to talk with . . .”

I have a rule: I don’t give my money to anyone who is not nice to me. I work too hard for my money to expect anything less.

Furthermore, I want the cent sign back on my keyboard.