What it's like buying gas these days

Some people say you should pay no attention to what you pay for gasoline. Because you just have to pay it anyway.

Okay. No, not okay.

I have rarely paid no attention to what I have paid for anything. In my whole life. That's how I was raised, a child of the 40s and 50s, one of five children. Our parents were not poor, but they were not rich either. My dad grew up eating what didn't sell at the Brimley Brothers' Meat Market. His mother was Scottish, and maybe she was also Scotch. Frugal was a good word in their home, no doubt.

When my mother was young, her dad was a farmer. They raised what they ate, and, don't forget, when they moved from eastern Idaho to western Idaho, they had no home and lived in a chicken coop, cleaned and scrubbed and whitewashed by my Grandma Nelson.

Both my parents were young adults during the Depression. They did not ever have to wait in lines for food. They both had jobs. But they knew the times were hard.

When they married, my dad probably very early revealed his frugal habits. He sought out and found bargains, often to my mother's consternation. The point: They knew where their money came from, and they watched where it went.

I knew to save money if I got it. They taught me that and to stay out of debt.

So yesterday, when the numbers at the corner Chevron station went up to $3.75 and 9/10 per gallon--and I do not know but what they will be up again the next time I pass that corner, and pass I will without stopping for gas--I moaned, I grumbled. I paid attention.

Then I went to Costco and paid $3.67 9/10 per gallon and grumbled only slightly less.

Yes, I noticed the price.

I always will.

And don't be telling me they pay more in Europe, thinking to shame me or make me feel--what?--better? I already know what they pay. But I live in America.