Oh remember the days when one could afford to drive around town and sight see?

I remember when topping off my tank didn’t require a major section in my weekly budget. Now, it does.

There was a time when I figured gas expenses in with my “small stuff column. If I broke a $20 for something, I used the change for gas. Granted, sometimes it was the change from a couple of $20s, but the change still worked. It got me around town and I never felt pained over the price of gas.

Then the prices started heading up. Filling up my little Elantra went from $10 to $20 and then $30 and now it is headed for $40. I sometimes use two tanks of gas a week. That means $80 worth of gas.

Like many people in this world, $80 is not an amount that escapes notice in my weekly budget. It is an amount that gets a big red circle around it while I try to figure out all of the things I am going to have to stop doing to afford the $80.

I was watching television the other day and some talking head said we haven’t reached the “pain point” yet with regard to the price of gas and it might be somewhere around the $5 a gallon mark.

Let me make this clear, I have reached the pain point and I have a tiny little car. I can’t imagine people who have those large trucks and older cars.

The movie theater, once a favorite place for me, is now just a memory. Ditto for the local crafts store. My dog is sporting a home cut because he can either have a working “mommy” or a hair cut. I have to have gas to get to work and back, he doesn’t have to have a clip.

My waistline will do fine without the burgers from my favorite burger place, but I wonder what will happen to the economy over all when we all start cutting back on the things we can’t afford while the gas prices keep climbing.

Who knew having a simple four-door economy car would end up being a “luxury”?

Happy birthday Wednesday to Tia Kemp, Tammy Golston, David Henry Clark, Nathan Palmer, Nancy Haas, Tylyn Dehorney and Nelda Wimbish and her granddaughter, Tiara Wimbish, all of Denison; June Ragsdale, Ja’Nayja Sealess, James Michael Mims, Mariah Chapman and Nyla Rockins, all of Sherman; Molly Griffin Bowen of Auxvasse, Mo.; Chris Roder and Edna Earl Sears, both of Bells; Albert Ellis of Tom Bean.

Happy anniversary Wednesday to Kenneth and Barbara Arthur of Denison 48 years; David and Mary Sims of Knollwood, 15 years.