I'm hemorrhaging...

...money, that is. I just spent $45.16 filling my car's gas tank. Some of you may be wondering where I found such a bargain. Well, I drive a Mini frigging Cooper. I guess this should make me glad for once that I live in the Midwest.

It's not that I don't love my car - I do. It's adorable and European and fun to drive. However, I would also love to be independent of it. It wouldn't bother me one bit not to have a car payment, not to spend all of my "fun money" on gas, not to contribute as much in terms of pollution, and to even be able to incorporate some, I don't know, good old-fashioned WALKING, into my daily routine.

That might be possible if I had another option available to me, but it's not likely to happen in St. Louis anytime soon. This is still a long way from becoming reality in my opinion, but even if our downtown had the infrastructure in place so that a girl such as myself could walk anywhere she needed to go, living there would still present a problem if you're like me and can't afford to send any hypothetical offspring to private schools (city schools being out of the question for obvious reasons). There is truly nowhere in St. Louis - city or county - where one can realistically live car-free.

And since neither moving to New York, telecommuting, or walking 20 miles a day roundtrip for work are options in my immediate future, I have no choice but to keep shelling out for gas. Which brings me to my point: someone needs to stop the madness immediately!

Sens. Clinton, McCain and Obama, please take note: the one of you who personally addresses this issue for me will have my vote in November.

Thank you.