…not that you’d get much for it, anyways, but hey, I suppose every little bit helps in these crazy, fossil-fuelin’ times. $3.75 a gallon, seriously?! There’s nothing quite like having to choose between buying “the most grusome, horrific video game of all-time*” or filling up the old jalopy for another week of mundane commutes to your thankless job at the stinky cheese factory, eh?

* Grand Theft Auto IV – available now from Take-Two Interactive : buy your copy today wherever fine video games are sold!

I understand that talking like this makes me sound like an angry, old man (stay off my lawn!), but I remember a time when I could fill up my gas tank for less than fifteen bucks. Granted, I shouldn’t still feel old-man-ish by saying that because it was 1996, but still… You could buy a moderately-priced CD at Wal-Mart for that price (yeah, 1996 was a little weird – people actually paid for music back then…), but nowadays it’s a whole new overpriced ballgame. When I filled up my tank earlier this week, the total came to almost $45, meaning that if it hadn’t been for my last two fill-ups, I could’ve spent my weekend running down hookers and raining down an unforgivable slew of death and carnage upon rival drug dealers and innocent bystanders alike (…in Grand Theft Auto IV, mind you. It’s a game, mind you, for those who began penning scathing letters to me in their minds after envisioning those poor, defenseless hookers wanting nothing more than to “love me long time” for a reasonable wage. Let it be known that with the exception of Foxy Boxing and Rock ‘Em, Sock ‘Em Robots, I’m generally only a fan of simulated violence.)

Of course, as much as gas prices these days feel like the filling station equivalent of non-consensual sex, we might as well get the bickering out of our systems now because good luck trying to get any sympathy on this one from our grandkids!

Me: Why, back in my day, gasoline got up to $3.75 a gallon! I had to wait three extra weeks to buy Grand Theft Auto IV that summer…

Kid: Screw you, old man! We can’t even BUY “gasoline” these days because you and your irresponsible parents wasted it all!

Also, Grand Theft Auto IV was weak sauce completed to Ultra Mega Death Killers 5: Kill or Be Killed.

Then Little Johnny will zip off down the road on his hoverboard while I stand in the driveway shaking my fist, “It was the best selling game of 2008! You ungrateful kids and your renewable energy – you sure are lucky that your parents came up with a new source of energy that didn’t completely bastardize the planet in its consumption…”

So enjoy those high gas prices, and any related groaning and grumbling, while you can, folks! The future will no doubt hold many new marvels and surprises – let’s just hope that they continue to contain all of the gratituitous simulated violence and mayhem to which our aging generation has grown accustomed…