By Bill Shein
December 3, 2008

Perhaps you’ve noticed recently that instead of spending $40 to fill your gas tank, it only cost you around $20. And that topping off the oil tank at home is now essentially free.

The reason? Oil and gas is getting cheaper by the minute, folks. So let us say, “All right!”

Obviously, the collapse of fuel prices means an end to all the nonsense about “peak oil” and the need to develop a so-called “green economy” for the future, right? Oil will now be cheap and plentiful until — according to ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute — the end of time. And we no longer have to worry at all about the environment.

It didn’t take long for me to adjust to this new, improved energy reality. My guess is that others are also making changes to their foolish, energy-conserving ways.

For example, last week I set my thermostat to a constant 90 degrees and transformed my home into a non-stop beach party. (I also filled the first floor with six inches of soft, white sand.) So grab some pina colada mix, a trashy novel, and a Beach Boys CD and come on over, everyone!

No longer concerned about the price of gas, I leave my car idling all night long so it’s toasty warm in the morning. And before bed, I spill a few gallons of gasoline in the driveway and set it on fire. Just for fun.

When driving, I always take the long, scenic route. Sometimes I even drive in the opposite direction around the earth to my destination, adding 25,000 miles to the trip. Cheap gas is awesome, yes?

Feeling bored last weekend, I dug an enormous hole in my back yard and filled it with thousands of pounds of delightfully dirty coal. I poured some (cheap) gasoline on top and set it on fire. I expect it will burn all winter, especially if I continue to add old tires, Styrofoam cups, mercury thermometers, cadmium batteries, PCBs, witches, and miscellaneous trash. It heats the entire neighborhood. Burn, baby, burn!

(Attention Hollywood location scouts: My glowing back-yard pit produces a thick, orangey-black haze that’s perfect for “Lord of the Rings IV: Chevy Chase’s Mordor Vacation.” If you stop by, I’ll show you my hilarious “Jack Nicholson-as-Gandalf” impersonation.)

Tonight, after dinner, I’ll remove all the unsightly weather-stripping that I installed last winter. With oil prices tumbling, who cares about drafty windows and doors? Besides, the heat from my burning pit o’ coal creates warm drafts. Though with the thermostat at 90 degrees, it’s hard to tell.

Did I mention that I now leave the shower running all day and night? And that I removed the showerhead’s flow limiter to create a tropical waterfall effect? And that when I’m offered “paper or plastic” at the supermarket, I say, “Both, please. Quintuple-bagged, too.”

I’ve also stopped recycling. And next week I’m trading in my high-mileage sedan for the new Chevrolet Three-Story EnormoMax SUV, the kind of gas-guzzling behemoth that keeps the American auto industry kicking out huge profits, year after year.

With fuel prices low, I’m also suddenly convinced that global warming is a hoax perpetrated by an evil consortium of wind-energy companies, polar bears, and assorted liberal doomsayers. So convinced, in fact, that I recently took down all of my Al Gore posters. That includes one in which the former vice president sits playfully on a pile of solar panels, posing like Farrah Fawcett in that iconic 1976 poster of Charlie’s sexiest angel. What? I’m the only one with an Al-as-Farrah poster? Weird.

If we work together, America, we can find myriad ways to enjoy the absurdly low price of energy. So let’s get busy — before that phony “environmental crisis” returns to spoil the fun.

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Bill Shein wrote this column on his trusty coal-powered laptop.