Last Saturday, we embarked on a road trip to Morris. Our destination was R-Place, a restaurant featuring bountiful burgers and dancing marionettes, located at the junction of I-55 and I-80.

Pulling into the vast parking lot, my husband, Tom, surveyed the gas price of $3.64 a gallon at the BP Station attached to the popular truck stop. Speedily, our friend Dan urged Tom to fill his tank. 

“Tom, you’d better buy gas before dinner in case the price goes up while we’re eating,” he laughed.

Strolling past the gas pumps, Dan grabbed my arm and said “Alice, look at this!”
Dan pointed to a hose attached to a white recreational vehicle where 28.2 gallons of gas had filled the motorhome for a total of $102.24.

“Where are you headed?” Dan asked the RV owner.

“We’re on our way to Alaska,” the driver answered.

Driving a vehicle that gets 8 mpg, Dan and Tom determined that the owner of the white RV was headed for a very pricey road trip.

As stations pump up gas prices, Willowbrook resident Kathy Esenther noted the inconsistencies of petropolitics.

“This afternoon, I bought gas for $3.69 a gallon at the Speedway at 75th (Street) and Cass (Avenue). While driving through Joliet, I passed a station where gas cost $3.65 a gallon. Less than two miles away, Gas City was selling its gas for $3.85 a gallon,” Esenther said. “How can there be a discrepancy of 20 cents more a gallon between two stations in the same neighborhood?

“A few days ago, while picking up my dress for my daughter’s wedding, I passed a station selling gas for $3.61 a gallon. When I pulled up, I discovered that the price listed on the pump was different from the price on the sign in front of the station,” she added. “When I asked the attendant, she informed me that I had failed to read the small print that said ‘with rebate.’ So now you need binoculars to read the fine print on the signs when searching for the lowest gas price.”

For diligent drivers, finding the lowest gas price is like winning the lottery. Pump prices have become so inflated that the sales tax on gas is higher today than the gas itself was 35 years ago. In 1973, gas cost less than 35 cents a gallon. When the Middle East War began in 2003, gas cost a mere $1.50 a gallon.

Gone are the days when college students competed to see who would be the first one to drive through all 48 states. Before the petroleum pandemonium, college kids drove out of state to buy novelty beer and cruised across the city to purchase a special flavor of ice cream.

In decades past, people bought cars based on looks, style and speed. For the last three years, contemporary car ads focus on fuel efficiency. Today, every car advertised must have mpg information. 

Can any good result from rising gas prices? Esenther, who works as a shift manager at a grocery store, thinks so.

“People drive all the way to our store for one item. One lady shops here every day buying only one item on each visit. Why don’t people condense their trips?” she said. “Maybe the gas crisis can be a good thing to make people more responsible. When the crisis hits your wallet, maybe you’ll do something to make a change in your driving habits or your lifestyle.”

If you have an idea for my Weekly Windows column, please leave me a message at (630) 368-8864 or e-mail HENHOUSE23@aol.com.