Maybe it was just a nightmare after all!
This morning I went to fill up my gas tank and to my astonishment the total came to $19.01. A couple of months ago it would’ve cost me over $40 for the same gas. I looked at the price on the pump and still more astonishment came to me as I noticed that the price read $1.95 and 9/10. I had been so used to paying over $4.00 a gallon I had trained my eyes not to look upon the pump. “Just fill ‘er up and tell me how much I owe you,” was my stance. As Doctor Smith from “Lost in Space” would’ve said, “Oh the pain, the pain!”
But frankly, the price for gas has been plummeting for the last two months now. CNN announced that the average price for a gallon of gas nationally was $1.76. And that got me thinking. With just over a month to go before Obama takes the oath of office, I thought I would flash back about eight years. Gas was going for about $1.47 a gallon, the economy was strong, there was a budget surplus, and we weren’t at war with anyone. I did a little calculating and at the rate that the price of oil is dropping, I expect it to be near a buck and a half by January 20th.
You know what that means don’t you? Maybe the last eight years didn’t really happen. Maybe it was just a nightmare after all. Yes, that’s it. There’s no Iraq war, the economy is strong, we have a balanced budget, and we don’t need to take out a second mortgage just to put gas in our cars. Isn’t God great? He loves us so much he’s going to turn back time and yell out “Do Over!” No more contempt for the Constitution, no more treating people like they were children, and Joe the Plumber can go back to doing what he was suppose to be doing: fixing clogged pipes. What a country!
I can see it all now. We wake up early on Tuesday, January 20, 2009, only to learn that the real date is Tuesday, January 23, 2001. George Bush isn’t standing at the podium, and no neither is Al Gore. It’s Barack Obama and he takes the oath of office for President of the United States. A proud nation listens as the new president plans on leading our nation in the new century. No scandals, no mortgage meltdown, and at the last minute a threat to destroy the twin towers is narrowly averted as an alert and competent President Obama, upon learning of actionable intelligence from his advisors, acts swiftly and decisively. Three thousand people do not die in a raging inferno and thousands more like them in a senseless war that would cost half a trillion dollars to wage. The world doesn’t necessarily love us, but at least it doesn’t hold us in contempt. We eventually hunt down and kill a man named Osama bin Laden, who was responsible for the U.S.S. Cole bombing in 2000 and bring to justice dozens of his henchmen. The United States enjoys a period of unprecedented peace and prosperity during the first decade of the 21st century.
OK, I know I’m dreaming, but can those gas pumps really be lying? After all the last eight years have been so painful, is it really that bad to wish it all away? Can’t we just pretend like children do that we could start over? You know cover our eyes count to ten and say, “ready or not, here I come.”
Sadly, we can’t. Like it or not we lived through those eight years. Collectively as a nation we voted for a man who could not have been less ready to lead a nation, and we paid dearly for it. President-elect Obama will have a lot on his plate when he takes office on January 20th. He will not have the luxury of a do-over or even a garbage disposal. The crap that has been building up for the better part of a decade is now his to clean up. He will need every bit of our prayers and support if we are to get out of this nightmare with a whole skin. If it is true that God never gives us more than we can handle, then we can safely say he has given us quite a handful to deal with. I’m not much for new year’s resolutions but I feel that the nation’s health should be the only resolution that we should be focusing on in our prayers this holiday season. We are not children, and now more than ever we can’t hide our eyes from the truths that disturb us. Growing up is painful, but avoiding reality is far more painful. As one who has attended more than his fair share of binges, it is time we clean up our act, sobered up and stopped behaving like juvenile delinquents. Instead of yelling “do-over,” like spoiled brats, we should be all be saying, “Now what?” The former avoids reality; the latter begins to deal with it.
