Before I go to bed, I feel the need to rant about something else: Gas prices.

I don't get what's driving the price of a gallon of gas up so much. I went to see my parents for the weekend, but had to put gas in my car before I left town. What used to be a $20 tank of gas just a few months ago is now a $40 tank of gas. Why? Can anyone explain it?

I've heard the following used as excuses:

• Hurricanes: Okay, so a hurricane hit the middle of the Saudi desert...
• Domestic Wildfires: ...but don't we get our oil from other countries?
• Increased Transportation Expenses: o_O Okay, so we're applying recursion to life. Great.
• Political Turmoil: Yeah, so President Bush had a bowl movement and we're not speaking with {Insert oil producing country here}. Let's turn to the reserves.

In short, someone needs to figure out how to fix this problem and actually do something about it. I'm inches from using public transit and my bicycle in place of my car.

At this point you're probably wondering how much gas costs now: About $4.00 per gallon.

Warning: This entry may contain some content bound to stir up various opposing views. I don't intend for this topic to spark any discussion - I just need to vent - but if you feel the need to comment, please do so in a civil manner. I reserve the right to disable new comments or posted comments at any point in time.

So tonight I went to Wal-Mart to get some groceries. I walked up to the checkout and stood in line behind a hispanic couple. After about 90 seconds of standing there, I noticed something: They split their order up and were paying for certain parts with food stamps. The cashier found that one of the items was not listed on the "allowed" list, and attempted to instruct the man accordingly. After she got it across to him that he had to pick a different item, the man went and exchanged the item while his wife stood in line and took care of the remaining 3 orders, signing the food stamps accordingly.

As the man came back, the last order was being scanned. When it came time to pay for this final order, he removed his swollen wallet from his pocket and paid with a $50 bill. As I was standing there waiting, I noticed that his wallet was full of 50's.

This made me so incredibly angry for several reasons, not the least of which being he was fully capable of paying for his orders, mine, and the 2 people with overflowing carts behind me, without the need for food stamps. So why in the world am I paying taxes to cover the other two-thirds of his order, when he is clearly earning enough cash somehow to pay for it himself?

Okay, okay... You're thinking now that this is probably an atypical case, and that he was just paying with his tax refund check, yadda yadda. I'll grant you that. However, this isn't the first time I have seen this; I have also worked with these hispanics, and I know how they're paid. It's a matter of the boss pulling a wad of cash out of the drawer, handing it to the worker, and marking it in the books as a "miscellaneous expense".

Why do we allow this? Am I the only one worked up by it? What right do these immigrants have to collect food stamps and feed off our hard work to be able to eat? Why can't they take their own earnings and live like most everyone else, from paycheck to paycheck and making sacrifices? Do they not know better? Is there not a system in place to check up on them after they get situated and employed?

It's just so frustrating to me, that I have to pay another $100 on my taxes, yet these people are exploiting the system in such a manner.