Friends of Opec-Economy Booster?

My husband teases that, if there was a friends of OPEC award we would win it. We are currently flying down I-5 at 70mph in our 8 miles to the gallon RV. It is not enough to have our home on our backs. Our Harley is behind us on the lift and, just in cast it rains, our SUV is hitched below that. We are a living color snapshot of the gluttonous Americans. We are not rich. Our motorhome is not shiney and new. Our car is aging. Our Harley...okay, well, it's my husbands only vice. To say the least our carbon footprint, at the moment, is HUGE.

Unfortunately, there's nothing I love doing more. My dogs are, respectively, at my side or laying at my feet. We are listening to the latest homorous offering by Carl Hiaasen, noshing on beef jerky and iced teas and the world is going by, ever-changing, in our windows.

I jusify this journey of excess by insisting we are doing our part to boost the economy. I keep hearing people say that, in this economy, they won't buy this or that. I also hear the government is getting people this stimulus money and that stimulus money. Well, I'm no economist but I am gathering that the stimulus comes when people spend as long as it's money they have. When those who will not buy put money under their pillows, it seems to me, they become part of the problem.

We will stay in motorhome parks and eat in restaurants. We'll purchase a souvenir or two along the way. Those businesses we visit will have to purchase one more cactus Christmas ornament or have a waitress work an extra hour. In turn that artisan can put the money towards rent and that waitress can buy her child a few more school lunches this week. All that money is spent right here at home. Okay, maybe it's an over simplification but it allows me to sleep at night.

Don't get me wrong. If someone makes an RV that runs on seaweed I'm in. If someone will produces an affordable electic SUV that will take me on long trips and provide the recharge stations along the way I'll buy it. If that RV is made in America like this one is I will have kept that money at home, too.

Are we friends of OPEC or brave economy boosters? Perhaps it is the Yin and Yang of todays economy. Hey, maybe the people in that RV going the other way will take a picture of the sunset and come in to our store to frame it?