It weighs two tons, was once Reality-TV- Star-Bleached-Teeth-White (a good shade for the bathroom), seats seven humans with five car seats and the occasional dog, hosts numerous petrified french fries under the seats, broken crayons, and last week’s Sunday School papers.

It’s tank is full of liquid gold, also known as gasoline.
I topped off the tank yesterday after hubby informed me he spotted a station with $3.25 a gallon advertised. I drove the kids to school so I could get to the nearest gas station before the clerk could change the “2” to a “3” on the sign.

Now I don’t want to go anywhere. I have a serious investment in the garage. It isn’t our minivan. It’s the gasoline inside. The kids will be surprised when I pick them up from school today with my walking shoes on and the stroller. Although we walk to school each morning, I have been picking them up, figuring they are probably tired after school and would whine a lot on our walk home.

Too bad I can’t bottle the whining I will hear and pump it into the tank. I could drive to California for the weekend on the fumes alone.

It has widened.

I look at the images on TV, the internet, and the newspaper of the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, and I am struck by how fragile all of us truly are. The thing that angers me and saddens me the most is those who can least afford the destruction are the very ones who are suffering the most. I read a story of elderly residents in a boarding house, trapped and drowned. I saw a picture of a person handing a three-month-old baby to a rescuer in a boat. They spent the night on their roof.

I think of the people in the Superdome, who are only there because they had no place else to go. The conditions inside the Superdome have deteriorated with no end in sight.

My prayers go out to the people in the Gulf coast states. Please, if you have family or friends affected by Katrina, post a comment to let me (and others) know.