To be honest, the smoke was bothering me, and I didn’t really know anybody there, and they were paying music that I couldn’t relate to on any level as music (but I had no trouble relating to as torture), and I wasn’t having a very good time, and I was worried that I might miss the last bus. So even though it wasn’t even 9:30, I left the party. If that makes me a wus, well, I don’t want to hear about it, okay?
It was a dark and stormy night, and as I walked away from the bus stop, I could swear that I heard a metallic rumbling behind me; but, when I turned to look, there was nothing there. As I walked down the street, the rumbling grew louder. Whatever was out there was rumbling straight for me!
I tried to stay calm, measuring my paces in a normal manner and ignoring the adrenal rush that was threatening to short-circuit every nerve ending in my body. Unfortunately, my feet were running ahead of my brain, and I could only hope that they were also running ahead of whatever was behind me.
As I got to the driveway, the rumbling stopped. Needless to say, I felt very foolish. I stood there for a moment, drained, which was just as well because, if I had had the energy, I probably would have had a heart attack when the quiet voice came from behind me.
“Hey, mister,” it asked, “spare a little progress for a natural resource down on its luck?”
I turned, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “What…? I blurted. “Down here,” the voice directed. Rolling towards me was a barrel. “You…you’re…? Questions refused to come out whole, but I guess my meaning was clear, because the barrel answered, “That’s right. I’m petroleum? Do we have to stand out here in the rain? I dilute, you know.”
“No. Sure.” I said. I was still trying to turn my body off and my mind back on, but both were being particularly uncooperative.
“Could you give me a push?” the petroleum asked. “I’ve been out for days, and, frankly, I’m pooped.”
“Run out of energy, eh?” I responded, smiling nervously.
“Yeah. But, was I on a roll!”
I got the barrel into the house and, to my surprise, didn’t have to explain its presence to anybody. (Nobody was there.) I was going to set it in front of the fireplace, but it occurred to me that that might be insensitive, so I took it into the kitchen. I was hoping that there were enough appliances there to make it feel comfortable. “Can I get you anything?” I asked.
The barrel shuddered slightly, or possibly shrugged. “A good plan for industrial expansion would be nice,” it stated, “but I doubt you have one lying around.”
I put up some water. “My name’s Ira.”
“You can call me Earl.”
“How come you’re…rolling around?” I asked, trying not to wince.
“It was getting pretty boring down at the depo,” Earl told me. “All us barrels sitting around without much to do…”
“I thought there was always demand for…petroleum.”
“Well, yes,” Earl explained. “But, ever since the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ pricing agreement broke down, production has been way up, and demand hasn’t been able to keep pace. So, reserves have been increasing.”
“Driving the price way down!” I exclaimed, proud to be able to show off my grasp of grade school economic theory.
“Well, I don’t know much about that. But, with so many barrels not doing much of anything, some of us have been sneaking out…you know…painting the town black. I’ve been out for a week.”
“Aren’t you missed?”
“Are you kidding? A tanker could go missing, they’ve got so much. Say, you’re human, right?”
“Well, I -“
“Mind if I ask you a question?”
“Not at all.”
“A few years ago, when OPEC started dictating world oil prices, everybody in North America was really mad because higher oil prices meant higher production costs. This was bad for business…bad for the economy, right?”
“Sounds right.”
“Okay. Now comes the part I don’t understand. Oil prices are falling drastically because OPEC is having its little problem, but everybody in North America is still mad. Is there some reason for this, or are human beings just impossible to please?”
“I think it has something to do with the oil producers in this country. They’re making less because the cartel is falling out.”
“Oh.”
“But, human beings are impossible to please, too.”
“Well, they shouldn’t get mad at me. There I was, happily wallowing away underground, figuring that I had two, maybe three billion good years left. Suddenly, I’m up, out and bottled before I can grasp the full significance of my plight. It’s enough to break a poor resource’s heart!”
“How could we know?” I protested.
“Hey!” Earl replied. “I may be just petroleum, but I am refined!”