DEJA VU ALL OVER AGAIN

The Missus just called.

She’s still on her way home from work, but she took time out to warn me that there will be traffic tie-ups on any road on which stands a Filling Station.

Yes, Esteemed Readers: the Gasoline Panic of 2005 has begun.

Georgia is in a bad way, in that the pipelines that supply this little corner of the world with gasoline are all down. The gasoline comes from the Gulf Coast, of course, and Miss Katrina has screwed that area over to a fare-thee-well, as we all know.

Until the pipelines are up and running again, the only gasoline in Georgia is what’s already here. Existing inventories should be adequate for about ten days. That’s what the AJC says, anyway, and I am not privy to any inside info here at the Great Corporate Salt Mine.

Prices have punched through the $3 level, after having dipped to as low as $2.499 in the last few days. I paid $2.599 yesterday, and that’s beginning to look like the Bargain of the Week. SWMBO saw at least one station offering their wares - regular, mind you, not the Fancy-Pants Blend - at $3.299. With Labor Day approaching, $4 petrol would not surprise me overmuch.

It’s beginning to look like we are Well and Truly Fucked.

Oh, well. I’ve seen this crap before, both in 1973-74 and 1979, and we’ll live through it. Like a kidney stone, this, too, shall pass; and, like a kidney stone, it will be painful for the duration.

I won’t complain. Our house has not been blown to flinders; it has not been inundated by a vile soup of turds, mud, snakes, dead animals, and human cadavers. Our brethren and sistren in the Big Uneasy, coastal Mississippi, and several spots throughout Georgia cannot say the same. Our prayers, thoughts, and our Financial Assistance be with them.