It's a gas, gas, gas

(The U.N. might want to think twice before taxing this cow....)

Weird things happen all the time, and this past couple of weeks proved that point.

Hubby and I heard a lot about gas.

There was the outrageous report on, um, cow gas; the odd line item on our natural gas bill; and the daily climb for the price of gasoline at the pump.

Let’s do cow farts first.

I was watching Fox News one morning when a distinguished-looking gentleman appeared to discuss the proposed new taxes on cows and pigs. This man looked like a town banker, which made his four-time use of the phrase “cow farts” all the more hilarious. Naturally, I was fascinated. (I’m such a child.)

Turns out that the U.N. is accusing cows of producing 18 percent of the world’s greenhouse-gas emissions, and they claim that that’s more than planes, trains and cars combined.

While some believe that most of the methane is coming from the cow’s behind, others say the largest percentage comes from cow burps.

A suggested set of taxes on our cow buds went something like this: $125 per head for dairy cows; $85 per head for beef cows; and $20 per pig. These would be annual taxes.

Little alarm bells were going off in my head. If this tax went into effect, how long would it be before we couldn’t afford to consume dairy and meat products? What am I saying? As it is, I often window-shop at the steak counter of the grocery store before reality hits and I saunter to the cheapest ground beef and load up the cart. Looks like we’ll be replacing that protein with beans.

And there you go with another whole group of gas jokes.

Now, let’s take a gander at our latest utility bill. Seems as though AmerenIP is asking for yet another rate increase – this time, they say, it’s for delivering our energy to us. And, they point out with a wagging finger, they wouldn’t even have to ask us for more loot if they’d gotten every penny they asked for last time.

I’m one of those folks who actually reads more than the Total Amount Due on their bills. I want to know what we’re being charged for, and I sure found out.

Under “Total delivery services” (what it costs to deliver the gas to our home), the cost was $23.81. The amount of gas we used was $20.53. It cost more to deliver our gas than the product itself. As for the electricity portion, it cost $25.03 to deliver $33.32 worth of the product – a bit more balanced, but not by much. How much more will we all be charged to deliver a product none of us can do without?

That leaves the price at the gas pump. We’ve all heard that the prices have risen there for over 40 days in a row. Speculators, some say. Others opine that it’s summer blend, summer demand, low refinery output, and on and on. All I know is, we have less money to work with than before but we’re expected to pay more than ever.

I don’t have any easy answers. My job has been affected by the economy, so there’s less coming in, and with hubby on a fixed income that leaves wide open the almost-certain likelihood that one or both of us will have to take on a second, maybe a third job.

We both realize we’re in good company, that there are others worse off than we are, but sometimes that’s little comfort. As we try to sleep at night, our thoughts race and upset us to the point that we wake in the wee hours of the morning, our minds a-whirl with worst-case scenarios. For the umpteenth time, we huddle together over coffee at the kitchen table and scrape our budget to the bone, trying to find what else we can live without.

It’s enough to give one gas, if you know what I mean. And I think you do.