So there I was last night, heading for an evening class, and I passed the BP station on the corner where I normally stop to grab a diet Sun Drop (more caffeine than Mountain Dew!) as my evening brain fuel. I couldn't get into the lot because cars were stacked eight deep vying for the privilege of paying $3.14 a gallon for gas. I saw pickups like mine with multiple gas cans in the bed, and a lady at one of the pumps attempting to fill several milk jugs and making a right mess of the operation.

I'm starting to hear about shortages of gas cans and anything else able to contain liquid hydrocarbons with a reasonable degree of safety. People are stocking up, fearing that by the time summer driving season comes around there might be a gurney by the pumps for convenient removal of a kidney in exchange for a tank of gas.

I'm seeing otherwise-reputable reporters and stations breathlessly covering each cent increase in the price of gas as if it were another cause of cancer or terrorist threat discovered. I wish Edward R. Murrow were around to see this, folks, because he'd be laying about him with the heaviest blunt objects available.

How about we step back a minute and pretend we're living before there were cars, oil companies or such other modern conveniences. Here, have a piece of sassafras chewing gum: it'll help with the transition.

****Weird Visual Timewarp Effect****

It's 1875, and you're living on a farm in Missouri. You got half your wheat crop in before a swarm of locusts showed up and turned the remainder of it into an afternoon snack. Do you head for the general store, every scrap of your money in hand, and buy up as much wheat as you can carry? Do you storm your neighbor's property and loot his grain bins? Do you do everything in your power to make sure that you can continue to eat as much bread and cake as normal, maybe even storing up a few loaves?

No. You (you might want to cover the kids' ears here, I'm about to blaspheme) CUT BACK. You curtail your consumption. You consume less. You tighten your freakin' belt and stop stuffing your face, Chester!

Just sit a minute and let that revolutionary idea sink into your head: A commodity becomes scarce, so you make efforts to use less of it. In today's Wal-Mart world, that's crazy talk, I know; but I'm just the sort of radical free thinker to say such things.

Make no mistake: The gas prices are not coming back down next week, or even next month. In fact, Santa might be floating a loan to fill the tank on the sled come Yuletide. The simple math should do it for you: Before Katrina, U.S. refineries were running at 99 percent capacity, and we were sucking up every drop they could pump out. There haven't been any new refineries built, and some of the oil rigs that Katrina took with her are still gone. Yes, hybrid cars are selling like hotcakes, but we're still not making much of a dent in our oil consumption.

So, where does this leave us? Our good friends at OPEC have washed their hands of the problem, saying they simply can't be bothered to increase production right now, and can we please send them some more spare parts for their air forces? If you took high school economics, you know that the law of supply and demand is going to hold sway.

Since there's not squat most of us can do about the supply side of things, we'll have to work from the other end. Yes, I'm pointing at you. And you. And especially YOU, reading this on your laptop via Wi-Fi connection while you sit in your Expedition with the air conditioner blowing. You, we're just going to drag out and put on roller skates.

The first impulse is going to be to find alternative modes of transportation. You're going to see carpools come back, and more towns will be slapping bike lanes alongside major thoroughfares. Who knows, walking might even come back as an actual means of getting from one point to another, rather than something done on a treadmill at the YMCA.

But I'd like to propose something a little more far-reaching. Don't worry, it's nothing major ... just a complete societal change.

Are you ready for the revolution? Here we go. Hold on tight. I'm going to reveal the secret in the very next paragraph.

Stay home.

Oh, there I went and did it. Paris and Rome are in flames and someone's just grabbed Donald Trump and shaved his head. Darn me and my radical ways.

Seriously, you know what I'm getting at here. Let's again put it in dollars and cents, since we're all good capitalists, right? Say gas settles at $3.50 a gallon, which from what I've been reading is a conservative estimate. Say also that every vehicle has a 15-gallon gas tank. Again, that's conservative. My pickup truck seems to hold about 40 gallons. So, a tank of gas *sound of pencil scratching* will set you back $52.50. Call it $50 just to be tidy.

How much fun can you have around the house for $50? Hit the thrift store and you can buy a closetful of cool board games for that amount. You might have to explain to the kids that no, there are no plugs or controllers, and they can't buy cheat codes for Scrabble; but once you get everyone in the groove, you'll have a ball.

Can anyone in the house cook? If not, $50 will buy a heck of a lot of cookbooks at a used-book store. Or, for free, you can visit the Food section of this very site where a handsome and knowledgeable fellow who looks a heck of a lot like me will answer all your questions and provide culinary inspiration.

How about the yard? Could it use some sprucing up? Packages of seeds are dirt cheap, pardon the pun, and if you go for an herb garden they'll grow with a minimum of fussing. Just get out there with a shovel in your hand and start digging. Hopefully, inspiration will strike you before you strike a water main.

In a completely unsolicited product endorsement, I'm a member of Netflix, and for less than $20 a month it keeps keep me stocked with movies, with a turnaround so fast it's actually scary. I think the company's watching me from space, and starts packing up my next selection when it sees me headed to the mailbox with the last one.

I hope by this point you've come up with a few ideas I haven't listed yet, which makes this a really good place for me to shut up. I'll leave you with one final thought: Hurricanes aren't going to stop forming. Do you really want to be this dependent on petroleum when the next one decides to stroll through the Gulf of Mexico?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to buy a bike.

Before you get to the next paragraph and send me an angry e-mail, I am NOT getting down on those of you who are forced to commute to work, and I am well aware that the public transportation system in this country ranges from inadequate to downright laughable if you don't live close to a major city center. I'm just offering some ways to cut back on your nonessential fuel usage.

Still mad? Laughing? Trying to convert your Hummer to run on solar power? Drop me a line, anytime! Large cash grants and professions of undying love accepted.