Two weeks ago I saw something that made me laugh, but I would have laughed harder if it wasn't true.
I pulled up to my neighborhood gas station and saw the woman next to me filling up her Hummer. As I slipped my card into the pay station I heard her talking on her cell phone, saying:
"I can't believe it costs so much to put gas in my car. I might actually have to skip Palm Springs this year because it would cost a fortune just to get there. God, things are going downhill in this country."
Just so you have this right, a woman — wearing those insanely expensive Juicy Couture velour pants, might I add — driving a car that has perhaps the worst gas mileage since the Model T, thinks the main symptom that the world is going to hell is that she might not be able to afford the gas to drive to Palm Springs.
Then she used a word that has been floating around the airwaves for months now: Recession. It was that awful recession that was causing prices to skyrocket like an elevator on acid.
And she had a point — the price of gas is at an insane level these days. The cheapest gas you'll find in most areas will be around $3.80. Grocery prices are up too, and if you're selling your house, well, may God help you because the market sure won't do you any favors. In fact, just ask the ASU cheerleaders, wrestlers, and swimmers what they think of the economic climate.
Yes, I agree with Ms. Juicypants von Hummer that the economy stinks. A recession is never convenient. But we're a far cry from the end of the world — or even from the worst the country has seen.
When my parents were around my age, there was a major gas shortage. My dad says there used to be lines down the street at gas pumps. The high price you paid once you got there was the least of your problems.
When my grandparents were around my age, we had just begun the climb out of the Great Depression, with its mass foreclosures and bread lines. In fact, we were just about to begin World War II, when gas was not only rare — it was rationed. So were sugar, butter, rubber and a long list of other things.
Americans have historically responded to such downtrends in the economy with a kind of disgruntled stoicism.
In contrast, it seems to me that our response to the current economic hard times will go down in history as the first time a country's adults pouted as much as its toddlers.
Americans in general and young people in particular have gotten far too used to getting exactly what we want when we want it. Last I checked, an annual trip to Palm Springs wasn't a God-given right, but as a country, we don't seem to realize that.
A recession means cutting back and prioritizing what you spend and why. A recession means we have to stop taking our insane amount of prosperity for granted.
It means everything we have come to believe that as Americans, we didn't have to do because we lived in America.
Now, I'm definitely no fan of $4 gas, and I understand how frustrating it must be to sacrifice your favorite activity to budget cuts. But I think it's about time something made this country scale back.
I think it's about time we learned we aren't entitled to the special favor of the universe by virtue of being born Americans. If it takes a few months or years of riding the bus to work or paying for electricity instead of another round on the weekends, so be it.
If the worst that happens to us is that we swallow some of our pride and learn the difference between needing something and wanting it, maybe it will be worth some of that extra money we're spending on gas.
Emma Breysse is a journalism senior. E-mail her at: emma.breysse@asu.edu.
