The price of gasoline has skyrocketed in recent days, burning a weirdly irresistible smelling hole in consumers’ wallets. I have been particularly hard-hit; no, I don’t have a car. Or a motorcycle. Or a bus (why would you even ask about a bus?). Since I don’t have a med card or a fake, I — like many savvy Berkeley undergrads — rely on the convenience of huffing gasoline fumes after a long four-month midterm season.
Yet as global oil production faces challenges, many worry that gasoline will become the rich man’s huffable toxin. CalFresh, for some reason, won’t cover the cost (even though I told them fumes are part of my diet) leaving many students scrambling for cheap alternatives; glue, kerosene, magic markers, those guys who are inexplicably running shirtless at like 7:45 AM (trust me, unless you’re getting high off B.O. do NOT go for the sniff).
As I await the Financial Aid Office’s response on my request for funding to research just how high I can get off of gasoline, I have assembled a panel of experts to weigh the pros and cons of continuing my petroleum paradise.
“There’s basically no downside,” advised Nobel economic prize-winner F. Scott Titzgerald, who I just made up. “Getting positively lifted off your tits on fumes can only benefit the economy. Think about all the wonderful inventions inspired by gasoline-induced hallucinations: the breakfast burrito, baby Yoda plushies, car elevators!”
However, know-it-all stinky doo-doo head Doctor Martha Lifshitz from Kaiser Permanente was not as enthused.
“What? Don’t huff gasoline, are you insane? How did you even get in here? You can’t just walk into an office with — what is that? A jerry can full of monster energy drink and kerosene???”
For the time being, I am going to go by my therapist’s advice to “treat myself to a reward for all my hard work” and buy a whole barrel of vintage opium to inhale.