I know this town has a fantabulous bus system, but when you have to go to work, to school, to work number two, back to work number one and then home in one day, riding the bus can be a pain in the ass. Considering it takes a half hour to get downtown from UCSB, not to mention waiting time or bus switches, riding the bus is out of the question for me. Unlike those of you who live in I.V. and can at least ride your bikes to class, I live halfway between downtown (where I work) and school; biking would take way too long. So it looks like I am stuck driving to work and school five days a week, and I have to deal with the outrageous gas prices.

I drove by a Mobil station on Saturday, and the cost for regular boring old gas was $4.03. Maybe if I drove a fuel-efficient compact car that got 30-some miles to the gallon I wouldn’t complain too much. On a good day, I get maybe 20 miles to the gallon on the freeway. Stupid trucks! Not only do I have to buy gas every week because of how much driving I do, but I also have a bigger gas tank to fill. At four-something per gallon, I am looking at around 60 bucks per week just to fill up. I am no mathematician, but that adds up to $240 per month, more money than I spend on groceries. That is the cost for just simply commuting, too; if I wanted to go places on the weekends, it would be much more. So much for visiting my friends in SLO or Orange County this summer, I can’t really afford an extra tank of gas every weekend. Maybe I should look into ride sharing: I hear there is something like that on craigslist.

Sadly enough, there is not much that can be done about gas prices. Sure, there are gas protest days sometimes, but if I happen to need gas that day to get to work, I am going to have to buy gas; there is no way around it. There are certain places to get gas that should always be avoided, such as: anywhere off of Storke Road, the Mobil station off of Las Positas, and any Chevron. No matter what time of day, those stations are way more expensive than the others, especially Chevron. Just because you add a cute little rhyming word right after your name, does not mean you should charge an extra 50 cents a gallon! If you are looking for the cheapest gas in town, and don’t feel like driving all over town to find it, check out autos.msn.com. At least you will save a little bit of money. Everything I do right now involves driving; I have no choice but to suck it up and steal, borrow or take out another loan to buy gas each month. That is unless I can convince my dad to give me his work gas card; they aren’t going to ask about how he bought gas in southern California when he was in his office all day.