MICKI BARE Advertisement

Why are there so many cars on the road again? Please stop driving so much! All of a sudden you can afford gas again, so you feel compelled to fill up and hit the road. However, filling up for the price of take-out pizza will only bring about serious consequences. Sure, it feels good now, but what about later?

Cheap gas seems like a wonderful blessing, especially as the holidays approach. Suddenly, you don't mind hopping in the car to visit relatives with which you practically lost touch. Admit it -- you are even planning to travel for Thanksgiving. If not, you are inviting everyone you know to hop in a car and drive to your place for a big turkey get-together.

If gas prices were still hovering at the $4 mark, wouldn't you be planning a quiet, stress-free holiday with just those in your household and maybe a drop-in neighbor or two? Wouldn't you be relying on electronics -- video chatting, texting, digital phone calling -- to catch up with extended family if it cost $100 to fill your gas tank?

But now that it costs $50 -- only if your tank was completely empty -- you are planning one of those giant get-togethers with relatives you haven't seen since you traded your heavy-duty, deluxe edition, eight passenger family vehicles for efficient sedans.

Clearly you have completely forgotten the brawl that erupted when Uncle Henry loudly debated politics with your favorite cousin. Or the hurt feelings when the pecan pie plate was picked clean, but no one touched Aunt Frieda's wreath-shaped, lemon-lime gelatin mold.

If the prospect of tension and stress brought on by huge holiday family gatherings won't keep you off the road during the holiday season, then maybe I can persuade you with a little economics lesson.

According to what I can recall from the required economics 101 class I took in college, if you keep using up the gas, the demand will rise, which will dwindle the supply. When the supply decreases, prices will increase again. All the driving you are now doing simply because you can afford it will eventually drive gas prices back up.

Food prices have not dropped. Unemployment is still rising. We need to use the money we are saving on gas to catch up on all of the bills that have been piling up while the world has been slipping into recession. If gas prices increase, we'll be right back to eliminating food, heat, clothing and other luxuries just so we can afford the basics like transportation to work and school. How will any of us be able to squeeze out a dollar now and again for that piece of silky chocolate that will get us through these difficult economic times?

Maybe you have sweet, friendly relatives who get along. Maybe there are no controversies at your extended-family holiday table. Maybe everyone loves all the food that is served, including the lemon-lime gelatin mold.

Maybe you can afford to spend as much on gasoline as you spend on your mortgage. Maybe you will never have to worry about choosing between filling the gas tank and purchasing new underwear. Maybe you always have enough money for a silky chocolate bar.

If family dynamics and global recession do not strike a chord, then maybe you will respond to the health of our precious planet. What ever happened to being green? Two months ago, not many gas guzzling vehicles graced the highways. It was a bit too pricey to fill the tanks, but wasn't it also socially unacceptable to waste gas in a vehicle that had trouble squeezing out eight miles from a gallon?

What happened to car pools? Did a few months of squeezing into one car instead of two or three suddenly become unbearable? Was the commuter conversation so intolerable that as soon as gas prices dropped below $2 a gallon it suddenly became acceptable to regress to polluting the air with the exhaust of double or triple the cars on the road?

What about the ozone layer? Our atmosphere breathed a sigh of relief over the summer as we all played in our backyards because we couldn't afford to drive anywhere exciting. Now, just because we can afford to keep our tanks filled, do we laugh in the face of Mother Nature and pull the full-sized SUV's out of storage?

Please, as you make your holiday plans for the next couple of months, consider NOT lining up to fill your tanks with inexpensive, non-renewable, toxic fuel. Let's stick together, maintain extended family relations, help the economy and save our planet. Stop driving so much even though you can actually afford it!

Micki Bare is a columnist for the Arkansas News Bureau and the Courier-Tribune in Asheboro, N.C., and author of the book, "Relative Expressions." She lives in Asheboro with her husband and three children. Her e-mail address is mickibare@ inspiredscribe.com.