I mean that literally and figuratively.

So here I am on Sunday, updating the blog to a fall theme when I should be writing. Or doing laundry. Or buying groceries. But I’m out of gas.

I can’t go get groceries because I don’t have a bike to get to the store and if I drive I’d use up what precious little gasoline I’ve got left since most gas stations in the Metro Atlanta area are still out of gas.

Waits for the stations that do have fuel are more than half an hour. A Quiktrip in Smyrna got a tanker at 6 AM and another at 7 AM. By 10 AM, the station was out of gas.

We are using Twitter to find gas and the police to manage the lines.

The issue could last for several weeks, they say. (Don’t you ever wonder who “they” are and why “they” control so much?) I have enough fuel to get to work for three days or so. I live 13 miles from work, but if I wanted to take public transportation, it would take approximately 2.5 hours to get there: catch a bus to a rail station–if it goes there directly–take the train to another station to catch the bus service for the county that didn’t want to get in on the Metro Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority and then transfer to another bus that would take me to my office.

Carpool, you say? My company actually offers several vanpools around the city. When I lived further away, this was a terrific option and I used it constantly. But the closest vanpool is 8 miles away in the other direction and I’d have to traverse traffic from 3 major highways to get there. It would actually take me longer to get to the vanpool than if I drive to work myself. Plus, I’m salaried, which means I stay until my tasks are done. One night last week I stayed at work until 7:30 because I had a deadline. If I’d been on the vanpool I would have missed the deadline or my ride home. Neither is a palatable option.

Life is good, though. My bank is solvent. I still have a job. Even though I’ve gotten two more rejections, I have other projects to work on and put out there, if the market is interested. And I still have projects under contract. I just need the fuel motivation to finish.

No talking head has yet to explain the bailout (my Senators tell me not to call it that–I think he termed it an “investment loan”) in a way that makes sense to me. These people and companies drive the economy, they say. Yeah, they drove it right into the ground. I say the economy is driven by people who eat at McDonald’s, not sit on its board. People who shop at Wal-Mart, not own it. People who go to the movies, not star in them. People who wait in line for half an hour to buy gas, not the folks making multi-million dollar profits from it. But go on, keep giving them tax breaks and rescues if you like. And when consumers stop consuming what they’re selling, don’t get mad at us. We won’t have any money left to buy it.